Scary

Northwest Flight Misses Target

Were the pilots snoozing at the wheel?

How safe is flying these days? To the list of nightmare scenarios to race through your mind the minute you board—a plane landing in the Hudson River, an Air France flight lost at sea on the way to Rio de Janeiro—you can add pilots falling asleep at the wheel. A Northwest Airlines flight bound for Minneapolis overshot its destination by 150 miles Wednesday night. Both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the incident, and preliminary analyses suggest that the pilots might have fallen asleep. Luckily, they woke up in time to circle back and land safely at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It's not yet clear how long the pilots had been on duty, but the incident highlights recent FAA concerns about safety and pilot fatigue.