Northwest Pilots Loose Licenses

 On Tuesday the FAA announced that it has revoked the licenses of both pilots at the controls of the Northwest flight that flew past it destination by 150 miles and didn't reply to controllers for over a hour.

The topic of conversation on this issue right now is if revoking their licenses was really necessary. Here's my view on that. As a pilot I understand how important situational awareness is. Losing situational awareness is up there on the list of worst case scenarios. At all times as a pilot you should be aware of where you are, what obstacles may be around you, what your checkpoint is, what your going to do in an emergency etc etc. At this task these two pilots failed miserably. And in a Airbus 320 it not that hard to keep track of where you are. First off, they would have their route programmed into their on board navigation system which gives audible warnings when approaching the programmed in top of decent point which is the point at which the pilots need to begin their decent from cruise attitude to landing. Secondly the autopilot is generally set to follow this programmed in course and will alert you if it gets off course. Secondly, to not respond to air traffic control is a big no no. The only time you can deviate from a controllers assignment is in the case of an emergency which they have already ruled out in this case. To not be in contact with air traffic controllers for over a hour is beyond me. The only way I could see that happening is if they took their headsets off all together which would be poor judgement for an experienced crew like this one. Now those who feel that FAA went to far will say that at no time were the passengers safety in jeopardy and they didn't bend any metal. But that alone is not enough for us to say OK your forgiven. What if it took them longer than a hour to realize what was going on? What if they ran out of fuel before they realized what was happening? What if they crossed into Canadian airspace without clearance? If you dont punish the pilots responsible for this error you are sending a message that its OK to not follow the rules as long as no one gets hurt. Bottom line they failed at their jobs that day and unfortunately lost their licenses because of it.