Associated Press
 
March 15, 2010
 
MINNEAPOLIS -- Two Northwest Airlines pilots who got distracted and overshot the Minneapolis airport have agreed not to fight the revocations of their licenses but could fly again under an agreement they reached with federal authorities.
 
Under the settlement released by the Federal Aviation Administration, Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Washington and Richard Cole of Salem can apply for new licenses in late August.
 
Cheney and Cole told investigators they became distracted and lost track of time last Oct. 21 as they were working on their laptop computers on a complicated crew scheduling program they had to learn after Delta Air Lines acquired Northwest a year earlier.
 
They told investigators they were unaware that air traffic controllers and airline dispatchers had been struggling to make radio contact with them for more than an hour, or that the military was readying fighter jets for an intercept mission.