WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and SportsInvestigation into wayward flight continues

Investigation into wayward flight continues

Eau Claire (WQOW) - There's speculation that pilots were asleep when a northwest airlines flight overshot the Minneapolis - St. Paul airport. And it missed by so much, it flew right over the Chippewa Valley.

Here's the flight path from Wednesday night's flight that had nearly 150 passengers on-board. It flew into western Wisconsin, north of Hudson and then into Dunn County, eventually between Chetek and New Auburn. Finally, somewhere around Ladysmith, radio contact was made for the first time in more than an hour with that plane. The pilots turned the plane around and headed back towards Minnesota.

The Chippewa Valley Regional Airport Director told News 18; their tower was not alerted because the plane wasn't in Eau Claire's airspace. However, homeland security was on alert. NORAD says fighter jets from two locations were on the runway and ready to go, but before they took off, the FAA was able to reestablish communication with the pilots over western Wisconsin. Those fighters were then told to stand down.

The pilots told the NTSB they were having a heated discussion over airline policy and lost track of where they were. Others suggest that couldn't have happened for more than an hour without radio contact, and believe the pilots were asleep.