Pilots of Northwest 188 who overshot MSP agree to lose their licences

​Richard Cole and Timothy Cheney, the two Northwest Airlines pilots who somehow managed to overshoot Minneapolis-St. Paul airport by 150 miles last October, won't fight the revocation of their licenses, the Federal Aviation Administration announced today.

The FAA first revoked the pilots' licenses a week after the incident. But Cole and Cheney had been fighting the move, and fighting between themselves over who was to blame for the error, which brought the flight from San Diego well into Wisconsin before the pilots realized something was wrong.

Under the terms of their agreement with regulators, neither pilot is admitting any wrongdoing, and both can reapply for their licenses this summer.