Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot destination ‘working on laptops,’ apparently

It's funny because it's upside down

The National Transportation Safety Board has let slip the first explanation for why those NWA pilots overshot their destination and almost caused their plane to get shot down by the US Air Force – they were ‘working on their laptops.’

[Insert 'surfing for porn on the web' joke here]:

The pilots – Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer, and Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain – said in interviews conducted over the weekend that they were not fatigued and didn’t fall asleep, the board said in a statement.

Instead, Cole and Cheney told investigators that they both had their laptops out while the first officer, who had more experience with scheduling, instructed the captain on monthly flight crew scheduling. The pilots were out of communication with air traffic controllers and their airline for more than an hour and didn’t realize their mistake until contacted by a flight attendant, the board said.

via News from The Associated Press.

“Honestly, guys, we weren’t sleeping, for serious!”

OK, so the next time some flight attendant tells me to put my computer away before we take off, I’m going to be all like, “Have you checked the cockpit for that, too?”