A "Text" book case of Flying

In an interesting turn of events, the pilots of the Delta flight who missed landing in Minneapolis and flew far beyond the Minneapolis airport into Wisconsin told the National Transportation Safety Board that "they missed their destination because they had taken out their personal laptops in the cockpit, a violation of airline policy, so the first officer, Richard I. Cole, could tutor the captain, Timothy B. Cheney, in a new scheduling system put in place by Delta Air Lines, which acquired Northwest last fall." (NYT)

A few weeks ago, some students in one of my classes reported that they texted while driving, which drew a sharp rebuke from me. I will ask them if it was OK for the pilots to be on the laptops instead of watching the controls.