There's an interesting choice of words:"...while you were on a frolic of your own."That's a rather peculiar phrasing for an official letter from an FAA staff attorney.

Frolic does have a legal meaning so why shouldn't an attorney use it?Activities performed by an employee during working hours that are not considered to be in the course of his or her employment, since they are for the employee's personal purposes only.http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/frolicEDITThe term originated in the UK Courts.It is exactly 150 years ago that Parke B spoke the memorable words about liability of an employer, that he was not liable if the employee was on a frolic of his own. That was in Joel v Morrison 1834. That is just what this case is about and that memorable phrase has been the subject matter of innumerable questions in law examinations for the last 150 years http://julian-wyatt.com/Michelin.htm

Hmm, combine that with the time discrepancy written in the same letter, and this letter may not be as official as it looks!

I think the letter is very much real. The discrepancy in timing can probably be explained knowing the full sequence of events, not necessarily just the items spelled out in the letter.Nowhere in this letter it is stated that 7:24 is the first time pilots did not respond. Actually since it is stated that at 7:23 Denver notified Minneapolis that aircraft was not responding the last knowtransmission must have happened longer ago. You got to read such legal stuff carefully.From the earlier press reports it was clear that the last time anybody heard from these two pilots was approximately 6:56 CDT.

So are these pilots going to get treated like pariahs for something everyone

Frolic does have a legal meaning so why shouldn't an attorney use it?

Thank you Gerry! You've graciously supplied my daily "learn something new" requirement. :(

The 91 minutes I heard was on the news. Can't believe everything you hear on the mainstream news I guess. Maybe it included some time period that ATC couldn't contact them well before they passed over MPLS. It was also stated here:

They were out of contact since Denver Center's airspace. So yes, the lost communications began well, well, well before they were over Minneapolis.

I guess it's time for both these pilots to get Flight Simulator because that's the only flying they'll be doing from now on...

Why doesn't these aircraft have a loud warning (Like the Stall warning) go off after they pass it's last programmed waypoint. That way at least they would be alerted they were over their destination. Suppose they really were asleep? The plane would have just continued on until they ran out of fuel. A loud enough warning would have probably woken them up before they flew away too far.

http://ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2009/091026.htmlWith out having all the facts yet, I will try to be somewhat unbiased. One hundred and forty seven souls put their lives into these professional pilots hands and I hope these guys have a great reason why they checked out for the Midwest leg of their trip. But if they were using their laptops and going over crew scheduling as it was stated in the NTSB report on Oct 26, instead of FTFP. This could have ended very differently and to me being fired and losing their certs is getting off easy. Dudes need to do some time. It sucks, but imagine if your kids were going on a field trip and the bus driver just quit doing their job and let fate drive them along. The Police and DA would have more then their license, even if no one got hurt.

Why doesn't these aircraft have a loud warning (Like the Stall warning) go off after they pass it's last programmed waypoint. That way at least they would be alerted they were over their destination. Suppose they really were asleep? The plane would have just continued on until they ran out of fuel. A loud enough warning would have probably woken them up before they flew away too far.

I was also wondering: is SELCAL no longer in use? Is this not a way for company ops (or ATC) to "wake up" the crew? Seems to me a loud siren based on the same principle would be a fairly cheap way of increasing safety.

I was also wondering: is SELCAL no longer in use? Is this not a way for company ops (or ATC) to "wake up" the crew? Seems to me a loud siren based on the same principle would be a fairly cheap way of increasing safety.

I read somewhere that they used this to send a message to the crew after ATC asked for it.

I was also wondering: is SELCAL no longer in use? Is this not a way for company ops (or ATC) to "wake up" the crew? Seems to me a loud siren based on the same principle would be a fairly cheap way of increasing safety.

While SELCAL can be used on either HF or VHF I think it is HF where it is used most. I know from my non-pilot aircrew days on C-130's that trans-oceanic flights were long and tiresome and the HF was either plagued with sunspots or interminably noisy. SELCAL meant we could turn the radio down and listen to that more reassuirng cacophany created by the combination of T-56 Allisons and Hamilton Standards. I think SELCAL is also limited by channels and I would imagine that trying to use it for US domestic VHF would be impractible. Please correct me if I am wrong. In any case these guys on NWA 188 may as well have had their radios completely turned off for all the attention they were paying to them and to the admin texts from their operations staff. I am reminded of a funny I saw somewhere where ATC asks a bewilderded and lost student pilot what his last known position was. The students response was "ah.. when I was number one for take-off?!" With regard to these NWA pilots, I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that they pulled their laptops out while the gear was still spinning down on the snubbers in the well!

So are we ever going to find out what the pilots were doing during that time? Will the results of the FAA's investigation be publicly revealed in a situation like this?

So are we ever going to find out what the pilots were doing during that time?

But we already know what they were doing ... read above.

But we already know what they were doing ... read above.

I did read above, Michal.