Northwestern flight to Minneapolis

[Ned, NYNA11]

All,

Am I the only guy who wonders where our air defence was when air traffic control could not get a reply when they tried to contact the pilots.

Seems to me that soon after ATC lost communication with the plane, they should have assumed the worst and asked the Air Force to send up a fighter jet to see what was going on and maybe force the plane to land.

Wasn't there a similar loss of communication with the hijacked planes on
9/11/2001?

Have we learned anything?

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by Ned, NYNA11

Seems to me that soon after ATC lost communication with the plane, they should have assumed the worst and asked the Air Force to send up a fighter jet to see what was going on and maybe force the plane to land.

They did do that. Also, keep in mind that the '150 miles' they overshot MSP by is about 15 minutes in the air, FWIW.


Edit: after some reading, I guess they had "jets at the ready" but they didn't take off.

What is more important to note than the "15 minutes" they overshot the airport by is the 78 minutes of no contact with the plane.

[URY914]

I believe I heard that AF jets were scrambled....