Los Angeles: The two pilots who overshot a Minneapolis airport by 241 kilometres last week told federal investigators they did not doze off but admitted they were distracted while using personal laptop computers and discussing a new work schedule.

The Northwest Airlines pilots said they pulled out their laptops as they talked about how the schedule would function, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Monday.

Neither pilot on Flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis was aware of the airplane's position until a flight attendant called through an intercom about five minutes before they were scheduled to land.

Both have been suspended pending the results of the investigation.

The NTSB has yet to determine why the pilots did not respond to repeated calls and text messages from air traffic controllers for about 78 minutes, although several aviation experts have suggested that they might have fallen asleep.

The captain, Timothy Cheney, 53, and the first officer, Richard Cole, 54, are veteran pilots who said they have no accidents or violations on their records.

The two pilots told the NTSB that they did not fall asleep on Wednesday's flight, which carried 144 passengers and five crew members.

Rather, they told the NTSB that they used their laptops while discussing the new work schedule. The use of a personal computer in the cockpit is a violation of airline policy.

The pilots told the safety board that they heard radio communications through cockpit speakers but were so distracted by the discussion that they didn't realise they had overshot the airport.

A report in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the pilots might also have become distracted after one of them left the cockpit to use the restroom and a flight attendant brought food and briefly stayed to chat. An FAA official, however, said the preliminary investigation shows that the door to the cockpit remained locked during most of the flight.

Incident studied

The FAA is investigating a runway incursion that happened on Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport when two planes passed within 10 to 15 feet of each other, according to one witness.

Ian Gregor, an FAA spokesman, said the incident occurred about 3pm when a Midwest Express Embraer E-190 passed the hold bars on a taxiway and came closer than it should have to a Northwest Airlines Boeing 757 taking off on the south side's inner runway.