Northwest Flight 188: FAA Transcripts Released

Nov. 27, 2009 — -- Newly released transcripts from Northwest Airlines flight 188 -- the plane that went silent for a frightening hour on Oct. 21 -- show worried controllers trying repeatedly to reach the crew, and the pilots, realizing they had overshot their destination, sheepishly calling in for landing instructions.

"Ah, roger, ah, we got, ah, distracted and we've overflown, ah, Minneapolis. We are overhead Eau Claire and would like to make a one-eighty and do arrival from Eau Claire," says the pilot.

Northwest 188 was on a routine flight from San Diego to Minneapolis-St. Paul. The pilots later admitted to investigators that they had opened their personal laptops to figure out a new scheduling system. They overshot their destination by 150 miles.

"Northwest 188, if you hear Minneapolis center, ident," calls an air traffic controller -- one of numerous unanswered calls made to the plane on the transcripts, just released by the Federal Aviation Administration.

"I don't know ya can't reach him at all, that's crazy," says another controller at one point.

On the transcripts, controllers call other Northwest planes, trying to see if they can get the attention of the pilots.

"Northwest 196, ah, do you have a second to contact your company Northwest 188?"

"Denver tried going through a flight" says a Minneapolis controller, "and then my supe [supervisor] went through the company and he's still Nordo."

"Nordo" is shorthand for "no radio." The pilots of flight 188 did not reply to repeated voice calls or text messages.

Concern on the ground steadily grew. Federal counterterrorism agencies treated the stray jetliner as a serious threat, thinking it possible the plane had been hijacked. Fighter jets were placed on alert, though they never took off.

Meanwhile, high over Wisconsin, neither pilot was aware of the airplane's position until a flight attendant, Barbara Logan, called about five minutes before they were scheduled to land and asked about their estimated time of arrival. It was only then that the captain realized they had passed the airport.

"I just called them and said when are we landing, and that was it," Logan told ABC News in the aftermath.

Finally, the pilots of flight 188 placed the anxious call to the control center for the Minneapolis region.