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The fallout continued Monday from the Northwest Airlines wayward pilots who overshot the Twin Cities by more than 100 miles as the Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive calling on airlines, through training and enforcement, to keep crews focused on their task at hand.

The directive, which is considered guidance and not a regulation, was the appropriate handling of the situation, said aviation experts.

"The FAA could have published a list of very specific rules and punitive measures," said Jack Higgins, a former pilot who is a professor in the University of North Dakota's aviation department. "This is at the lower end of the spectrum, but still shows the FAA's determination to manage risk."

Citing the case of the Northwest pilots who in October were checking the airlines' new scheduling system on their laptops while in the cockpit, the FAA urged airlines to "create a safety culture that clearly establishes guidance, expectations and requirements to control cockpit distraction, including the use of personal electronic devices."

Jack Casey, a former pilot who now works for Safety Operating Systems, a Washington, D.C.-based aviation consultant, also called it a reasonable policy statement.

"There's always a tendency to over-regulate, especially when emotions are running high," he said.

Casey said the FAA directive addresses the need to limit distractions during all phases of a flight, an expansion of the agency's so-called sterile cockpit rule that prohibits pilots from engaging in any type of distracting behavior during critical phases, including takeoffs and landings.

The FAA announcement came six months after it revoked the licenses of Northwest Airlines Capt. Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., and First Officer Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., saying they had "carelessly and recklessly'' put their passengers and crew in jeopardy on a flight from San Diego to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The pilots were into Wisconsin before a flight attendant got their attention, and they turned the airplane around and landed safely.

Under a settlement with the FAA, the two could apply for new licenses in August.

Anthony Black, a spokesman for Delta Airlines, which acquired Northwest in 2008, said Delta already "has policies in place that meet or exceed" the FAA directive on training to reduce in-flight distractions.

The National Transportation Safety Board also criticized the Northwest pilots in addition to putting some blame for the errant flight on air traffic controllers. The NTSB last week announced it would a hold a safety forum on professionalism in aviation in May, citing the Northwest incident, a midair collision of a private plane and a helicopter over the Hudson River in New York last August and the crash of a Colgan Air flight in Buffalo, N.Y., in February.

The incident involving the two Northwest pilots wasn't the only one cited by the FAA in its announcement. In another, a pilot was texting after the aircraft pushed back from the gate but before it took off. In yet another case, an FAA inspector in the jump seat overheard a crew member's mobile phone ring during takeoff preparations. The FAA didn't name the airlines.

"It's really very simple: Engaging in tasks not directly related to required flight duties, including using personal electronic devices, constitutes a safety risk," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "The FAA can't have that. And the flying public can't have it."

Susan Feyder • 612-673-1723