Airline pilot distracted by new text messages botches landing attempt
APRIL 19, 2012 BY MIKE FLACY
While U.S. residents that fly commercially have to turn off their cell phones prior to take-off, a airline pilot in Australia left his phone on during a flight and found new text messages more interesting than landing the plane.
As detailed by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, an investigation into a Jetstar flight JQ57 between Darwin to Singapore discovered that the airline captain failed to lower the landing gear during the first attempt at a landing as he was too busy with his mobile phone. While the incident occurred nearly two years ago, the details of the investigation were released this week. According to the report, the captain neglected to turn off his mobile phone prior to the 220-seat Airbus 320 taking off in Darwin, Australia. When the plane began an initial descent into Changi Airport within Singapore, the captain's phone started beeping with new text message alerts when the plane was in between 2,500 to 2,000 feet off the ground.
The captain turned his attention to the phone during the descent and the co-pilot attempted to get the captain's attention. After trying to alert the captain twice, the co-pilot switched off the auto-pilot during landing, but started to notice that something was wrong when the plane was just 1,000 feet off the ground.
..