The pilots of the commercial jetliner that last week overshot its destination by about 150 miles have said they were using their laptops and lost track of time and location, federal safety officials said Monday.

The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet over the Denver, Colorado, area at 5:56 p.m. Wednesday when it last made radio contact, the safety board said.

Northwest Flight 188 had departed San Diego en route to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport carrying 144 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants. Northwest recently merged with Delta Air Lines.

“Using laptops or engaging in activity unrelated to the pilots’ command of the aircraft during flight is strictly against the airline’s flight deck policies and violations of that policy will result in termination,” Delta said Monday in a statement.

Pilot Timothy B. Cheney, 53, was hired in 1985 and has more than 20,000 hours flight time; First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54, was hired in 1997 and has about 11,000 hours of flight time, the report said.

Neither pilot reported having had an accident, incident or violation, neither had any ongoing medical conditions and neither said he was tired, it said.

They each had a 19-hour layover in San Diego; neither said he had slept or argued during the flight, but both said “there was a distraction” in the cockpit, according to the report.

The pilots said there was “a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls” from air traffic control, though both said they heard conversation on the radio, the report said.

Neither pilot said he noticed messages sent by company dispatchers, it added. It said the men were talking about the new monthly crew flight scheduling system put into place in the wake of Northwest’s merger with Delta Air Lines.

“Each pilot accessed and used his personal laptop computer while they discussed the airline crew flight scheduling procedure,” the report said.

“The first officer, who was more familiar with the procedure, was providing instruction to the captain.”Neither pilot said he was aware of where the plane was until a flight attendant called the cockpit about five minutes before the plane was to have landed and asked their estimated time of arrival, the report said.

“The captain said, at that point, he looked at his primary flight display for an ETA and realized that they had passed” the airport, it added. After 78 minutes of radio silence, the pilots re-established radio contact with air traffic controllers, it said.

After landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul, both voluntarily underwent alcohol breath tests, which proved negative, the report said.

The safety board said its investigators interviewed the pilots separately Sunday in Minnesota for more than five hours combined. The investigation will include scrutiny of the flight and voice data recorders, it said.

An airline spokesman said Monday the company has sent the passengers on the plane $500 travel vouchers to compensate them for their inconvenience, and that the pilots have been suspended until the conclusion of the investigations.

The NTSB on Monday interviewed the three flight attendants who were on the plane, a spokesman for the Association of Flight Attendants said.

The lead flight attendant told officers she was unaware there had been an incident aboard, according to the report.

The NTSB is hoping the plane’s cockpit voice recorder either will confirm the pilot’s account or provide evidence of another possible explanation, including whether the captain and first officer fell asleep.

(Source: CNN / Eli Rowe – YWN)