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Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Job one: Pay attention!

FlightAware.com via Associated Press

An image showing the path of the Northwest Airlines flight that overshot its destination.

Recent incidents in the travel industry are more than a little alarming.

By FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

Last update: October 30, 2009 - 10:23 AM

Maybe we should be glad they weren't texting while flying.

But how comforting is it to learn that two Northwest Airlines pilots flew right by their destination last week because they were on their laptops messing with their schedules?

Somehow, it seems this is not what flight attendants mean when they warn that electronic devices will interfere with communications.

On the way from San Diego to Minneapolis on Oct. 21, the flight crew was out of contact for more than an hour, which is what you might expect if a flight is in trouble.

The trouble was that Capt. Timothy B. Cheney, 53, and First Officer Richard Cole, 54, were violating company policy by using their laptops during the flight and were too distracted to notice that Northwest dispatchers were trying to reach them.

The traveling public wants to believe that transportation professionals are just that. But there's plenty besides this story to shake that confidence.

Remember the tourist helicopter and Piper airplane that crashed over the Hudson River in August?

An air traffic controller who initially was responsible for the Piper apparently was on an inappropriate personal call when the crash occurred; his supervisor wasn't even in the building as required, CNN reported this month.

Nine people died in that crash. The Federal Aviation Administration hasn't faulted the controllers' improprieties for the accident, but who can feel good knowing that controllers aren't paying attention when they're supposed to?

In 2008, a Metrolink engineer who plowed his commuter train into a Union Pacific freight train in California was having texting conversations on duty and was planning to have unauthorized guests in the cab, the Los Angeles Times reported. Twenty-four passengers and the engineer died, and 135 people were hurt.

The investigation also revealed that the freight train conductor had used his cell phone repeatedly the day of the crash and tested positive for marijuana, according to the Times.

After the Hudson River collision, a National Transportation Safety Board official spoke about "complacency and inattention to duty."

The traveling public should be asking whether companies to which we pay a pretty penny to get us from here to there appreciate their responsibility for ensuring safety.

Only in the movies and on the computer screen are planes, trains and automobiles just a game.

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