Washington: Two Northwest Airlines pilots who flew 150 miles (240 kilometers) past their destination because they were focused on laptop computers instead of cockpit displays may have opened a new avenue of concern for safety regulators - distracting personal electronic devices on the flight deck.
The pilots of Northwest Flight 188 told the National Transportation Safety Board on Monday that they were so engrossed in a complicated new crew-scheduling programme on their laptops that they lost track of time and place for more than an hour until they were brought back to alertness by a flight attendant on an intercom.
By then, the Airbus A320 with its 144 passengers and five crew members had cruised past its Minneapolis destination and was over the neighbouring state of Wisconsin, at 37,000 feet (11,300 meters).
