"Situational Awareness"

A Northwest Airlines plane overflew the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles Wednesday night, while the pilots engaged in a heated discussion over airline policy, according to federal officials.

As one who has been called on to give their opinion on matters relating to Delta/Northwest, I found this MPR story fascinating,

The flight was 74 minutes late, according to the Northwest Airlines Web site. The site says the flight was "delayed due to weather-air traffic control." The flight landed at 9:15 p.m.

In interviews with the FBI and airport police, the crew stated they were in a "heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

"They probably lost track of where they were," said Keith Holloway, public affairs officer for the National Transportation Safety Board.

The pilots were probably discussing the StarTribune's penetrating piece of journalism from a few weeks ago.

Funny that the plane is described as a Northwest Airlines plane. In fact, the story doesn't even mention Delta. I'm sure the Delta PR folks will work to correct the story to insert the proper name of the company.