Criminal Defense

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Geologists say wine critics may be stretching things a bit when they talk about the soil giving a vintage a distinct flavor.

Wine critics often use the French phrase, "gout de terroir" (goo deh TAIR-wahr), which means "taste of the soil."

But scientists who met in Portland this week for the annual Geological Society of America conference say much of that taste may be imagined.

The geologists say wines may vary in levels of dissolved minerals, but those variations aren't related to the levels in vineyard soil.

And they say the concentration of minerals in wine is below the threshold of human taste and smell.

"I am not saying that chemistry and geology have no effect on the wine. It may have effects that we don't understand," said geologist Alex Maltman.

"But whatever 'minerality' in wine is, it is not the taste of vineyard minerals," he said.

Debunking mistaken notions about terroir - how landforms, soils, climate and other local conditions define the character of wine - was one goal of the scientists during the meeting.

"When people talk about terroir, it all sounds very fancy and all very marvelous and it makes it sound like we really know something. But I guarantee you, we know very little," said Jonathan Swinchatt, a geologist and consultant to several high-end California vineyards.

Swinchatt, however, said he's found subtle differences in soil texture that make a huge difference in grape quality in California's Napa Valley.

One grower told Swinchatt about a "sweet spot" in his vineyard that consistently produced his best grapes. By digging pits across the vineyard to study the soil, Swinchatt found that the sweet spot coincided ! with a c lear geological feature: ancient volcanic debris lay much shallower there than in the rest of the vineyard.

At another Napa site, vines growing on adjacent, similar-looking gravel-and-sand soils produced grapes consistently different in character.

Swinchatt found that the two soil areas had different geologic histories: Floods laid down one, while volcanic debris flows deposited the other.

"Some factors in the geology are reflected in the winemakers' tastebuds," Swinchatt said.

For example, the soil's water-holding capacity can make a difference. Different soils create better or worse conditions for roots and the fungi that help roots extract nutrients. But scientists have barely started to explore these factors in vineyards.

Climate also is shaped by geology. In eastern Washington, the landscape is wrinkled into giant folds by north-south compression of the bedrock. As a result, "there are spectacular differences in climate over small distances," said Kevin Pogue, a geologist at Whitman College in Walla Walla.

Pogue found one site that enjoys on average 65 more days without frost than another just a mile and half away.

In Oregon's Rogue Valley near the California border, climatologist Greg Jones of Southern Oregon University combined information from soil surveys, climate records, zoning and other sources to map areas most likely to produce excellent wine grapes.

Jones found that more than half of existing vineyards are planted on land that is only marginally suitable for growing grapes. Nearly a third of the planted acreage is mismatched to climate: Cool-climate grapes such as pinot noir are growing where it's too warm, and varieties requiring more heat are growing where it's too cold.

Scott Burns, a geology professor at Portland State University who helped organize the se! ssion, c onducted a test that did little to settle the question. He offered fellow scientists wines made in the same style from the same pinot noir clones on two different soils: volcanic jory versus marine-sediment Willakenzie soil.

In a show of hands for a taste test, geologists picked the Willakenzie 40 to 15. But Burns, who has repeated the test with other audiences, said the running score is close to 50-50.

"Nobody is right," Burns said. "It goes back and forth."

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GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- A new study suggests warming temperatures predicted over the next century could boost tree growth on Northwest forests, but less so at lower elevations where most of the timber is and temperatures are already warm.

Researchers from Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service calculated an increase in forest growth rates in Oregon and Washington of between 2 percent and 12 percent by the end of the century, when climate models predict temperatures to be between 0.9 degrees and 6.7 degrees higher than they are now.

The greatest increases are likely at higher elevations, where temperatures are cold and growth rates have been low.

The lowest increases in growth, and even decreases, would be at lower elevations, where temperatures are already warm and growth rates have been high.

"There's a lot of variability here, depending on which climate scenario turns out to be most accurate and what policy changes are made as a result," co-author Darius Adams, a professor of forest economics at OSU, said in a statement. "And there are dramatic differences in forest regions and elevations."

Maps in the study showed the lowest growth rates in southwestern Oregon's Klamath Mountains and the east side of the Cascade Range, where temperatures are warm and rain is limited. The highest growth rates showed in the Olympic Mountains and Northern Cascades of Washington and the Blue Mountains of Oregon.

The study focused on predicted changes in temperature, and did not take into account factors such as changes in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and wildfire, said lead author Gregory Latta, a forest economist at Oregon State.

Researchers plan to expand the study to coastal Alaska.

The a! uthors n oted that legislation to control global warming includes a role for forests as an important means of storing carbon to limit the growth of greenhouse gases.

In the study, the authors said that private forests, which account for 45 percent of timberlands and 83 percent of the Northwest's timber harvest, will have a tough time maintaining current production levels, because they are generally at lower elevations. Harvest there is already at 104 percent of current growth rates.

Federal forests tend to be at higher elevations, where they account for 47 percent of the timber base and just 6 percent of the harvest, and will tend to increase the amount of carbon they store, the study said.

The scientists used four different computer models of changing climate conditions, a national inventory of forest growth, and past temperature and rainfall data to project growth at five-year intervals through the end of the 21st century.

The study was published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management and was funded by the U.S. Forest Service.

The General Accounting Office this week reported that the U.S. Forest Service devotes $9 million to researching ways of helping forests and grasslands adapt to a changing climate, and the agency feels it needs to make global warming a more prominent part of its decision-making process.

Oregon State ecology professor Mark Harmon, who was not part of the study, said while it is difficult to consider everything, he had reservations about the approach, which left out factors such as the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"I have more confidence (in a study's results) when those mechanisms are really addressed," Harmon said.

"There are people who do suspect that lower elevation forests have problems with water, even if precipitation stays constant, because it will! effecti vely be drier," Harmon added. "But there is this issue that trees do respond to (increases in) carbon dioxide. One of the things that happens is they become better at using water.

"Those kinds of mechanisms aren't in their model at all."

Steven W. Running, professor of ecology at the University of Montana and a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest report on global warming, said in an e-mail that the study "gives results consistent with what theory would suggest," adding that the climate models project similar temperature trends but a wide range of rainfall.

Running, who was not part of the study, also noted that it was important to recognize that it does not take into account factors such as the increase in wildfires and insect infestations.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - An occasional look at how behind-the-scenes access is acclimatized in Washington.

%byline(By LIBBY QUAID and DONNA BLANKINSHIP%)

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been the better player by far in the academy ameliorate movement, spending around $200 actor a year on grants to elementary and secondary education.

Now the foundation is demography unprecedented steps to access apprenticeship policy, spending millions to access how the federal government distributes $5 billion in grants to overhaul public schools.

The federal dollars are unprecedented, too.

President Barack Obama persuaded Congress to accord him the money as allotment of the economic stimulus so he could try new account to fix an apprenticeship arrangement that best accede is failing. The foundation is offering $250,000 apiece to advice states apply, so continued as they accede with the foundation's approach.

Obama and the Gates Foundation share some goals that not anybody embraces: paying agents based on apprentice test scores, amid other measures of achievement; allotment schools that operate independently of local academy boards; and a set of accepted academic standards adopted by every state.

Some altercate that a clandestine foundation like Gates shouldn't accomplice with the government.

"When you aggregation up with the government, you accommodation your adeptness to be critical of the government, and sometimes you accommodation your adeptness to do controversial and maybe unpopular things with your money," said Chester ! E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an apprenticeship anticipate tank. The institute, is amid the abounding that have received money from the Gates Foundation.

Another affair is that as a clandestine foundation, Gates doesn't have to disclose the capacity of its spending like the government does.

The big teachers' unions altercation some of the goals shared by Obama and the foundation. They say apprentice achievement is much added than a score on a connected test and that it's a mistake to rely so heavily on allotment schools.

"Despite growing affirmation to the contrary, it appears the administering has decided that allotment schools are the abandoned answer to what ails America's public schools," the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union, said in comments about the admission competition submitted to the Education Department.

The NEA added: "We should not abide the ailing focus on connected tests as the primary affirmation of apprentice success."

The American Federation of Teachers submitted agnate comments. Together the unions have 4.6 actor members.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan welcomes the foundation's involvement.

"The added all of us are in the game of reform, the added all of us are blame for dramatic improvement, the better," Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Duncan's close amphitheater includes two above Gates employees. His chief of staff is Margot Rogers, who was special assistant to Gates' apprenticeship director. James Shelton, assistant deputy secretary, was a affairs administrator for Gates' apprenticeship division.

Rogers said she abutting the administering because she was inspired by its goals for allowance kids graduate from high academy and accomplishment college.

The ad! minister ing has waived ethics rules to acquiesce Rogers and Shelton to accord added freely with the foundation, but Rogers said she talks infrequently with her above colleagues.

Bill Gates said his foundation is not the government's accomplice in the new admission program, which the government has called the "Race to the Top."

"It's no secret the U.S. apprenticeship arrangement is failing," Gates said. "We're doing all kinds of abstracts that are different. The Race To The Top is activity to do abounding altered ones. There's no group-think."

Gates stepped away aftermost year from his daily role at Microsoft, the software company he co-founded, to focus on the assignment of his foundation.

Vicki Phillips, the Gates Foundation's administrator of education, said it originally offered advice to states and academy districts that it was alive with and that are in agreement with abounding of the foundation's goals. She said the foundation shares Obama's priorities and sees itself as allotment of a beyond ameliorate effort.

The foundation's rising profile comes as the recession has gutted state and local budgets, which absorb added money on apprenticeship - roughly 35 percent - than anything else. Many states and districts can't keep all their agents on the payroll, let abandoned absorb money on a high-stakes appliance for federal money that includes some 44 pages of rules.

In Minnesota, added than a dozen apprenticeship department staffers are alive with consultants from the McKinsey & Co. all-around consulting close to adapt the state's application, using about $250,000 in Gates Foundation money, spokesman Bill Walsh said.

When the foundation offered to advice states administer for the admission money, it initially offered the $250,000 to abandoned 15 states.

Officials in other states complained when they lea! rned of the plan. The governors and chief academy officers groups apprenticed the foundation to expand its offer, and it has now agreed to advice any state that meets eight criteria, including a charge to the accepted standards accomplishment and the adeptness to link apprentice abstracts to teachers.

The foundation additionally is allowance some districts that are eligible for a share of the money if they are alive in partnership with nonprofits such as the Gates Foundation.

Not all the states are willing to altercate the advice from Gates or their applications for the federal grants. In added than half a dozen states, apprenticeship admiral did not acknowledgment buzz calls gluttonous interviews about the applications.

Those who receive money from the Gates Foundation often are reluctant to talk about their assignment for abhorrence of abashing their benefactor.

---

Blankinship appear from Seattle. AP Education Writer Justin Pope contributed to this address from Charlotte, N.C.

---

On the Net:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: http://tinyurl.com/cmoqox

Race to the Top: http://tinyurl.com/nz6a5t

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FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world's most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon's parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon - just in case.

In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls.

What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty."

If they had not been toting the device that works like Onstar for hikers, "we would have never attempted this hike," one of them said after the third rescue crew forced them to board their chopper. It's a growing problem facing the men and women who risk their lives when they believe others are in danger of losing theirs.

Technology has made calling for help instantaneous even in the most remote places. Because would-be adventurers can send GPS coordinates to rescuers with the touch of a button, some are exploring terrain they do not have the experience, knowledge or endurance to tackle.

Rescue officials are deciding whether to start keeping statistics on the problem, but the incidents have become so frequent that the head of California's Search and Rescue operation has a name for the devices: Yuppie 911.

"Now you can go into the back country and take a risk you might not normally have taken," says Matt Scharper, who coordinates a rescue every day in a state with wilderness so rugged even crashed planes can take decades to find. "With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn't have been in in the first place."

Fro! m the Si erra to the Cascades, Rockies and beyond, hikers are arming themselves with increasingly affordable technology intended to get them out of life-threatening situations.

While daring rescues are one result, very often the beacons go off unintentionally when the button is pushed in someone's backpack, or they are activated unnecessarily, as in the case of a woman who was frightened by a thunderstorm.

"There's controversy over these devices in the first place because it removes the self sufficiency that's required in the back country," Scharper says. "But we are a society of services, and every service you need you can get by calling."

The sheriff's office in San Bernardino County, the largest in the nation and home to part of the unforgiving Death Valley, hopes to reduce false alarms. So it is studying under what circumstances hikers activate the devices.

"In the past, people who got in trouble self-rescued; they got on their hands and knees and crawled out," says John Amrhein, the county's emergency coordinator. "We saw the increase in non-emergencies with cell phones: people called saying 'I'm cold and damp. Come get me out.' These take it to another level."

Personal locator beacons, which send distress signals to government satellites, became available in the early 1980s, but at a price exceeding $1,200. They have been legal for the public to use since 2003, and in the last year the price has fallen to less than $100 for devices that send alerts to a company, which then calls local law enforcement.

When rescue beacons tempt inexperienced hikers to attempt trails beyond their abilities, that can translate into unnecessary expense and a risk of lives.

Last year, the beacon for a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail triggered accidentally in his backpack, sending helicopters scrambling. Recently, a couple from New Bruswick, British ! Columbia activated their beacon when they climbed a steep trail and could not get back down. A helicopter lowered them 200 feet to secure footing.

In September, a hiker from Placer County was panning for gold in New York Canyon when he became dehydrated and used his rescue beacon to call for help.

With darkness setting in on the same day, Mono County sheriff's deputies asked the National Guard for a high-altitude helicopter and a hoist for a treacherous rescue of two beacon-equipped hikers stranded at Convict Lake. The next day they hiked out on foot.

When eight climbers ran into trouble last winter during a summit attempt of Mt. Hood in Oregon, they called for help after becoming stranded on a glacier in a snowstorm.

"The question is, would they have decided to go on the trip knowing the weather was going bad if they had not been able to take the beacons," asks Rocky Henderson of Portland Mountain Rescue. "We are now entering the Twilight Zone of someone else's intentions."

The Grand Canyon's Royal Arch loop, the National Park Service warns, "has a million ways to get into serious trouble" for those lacking skill and good judgment. One evening the fathers-and-sons team activated their beacon when they ran out of water.

Rescuers, who did not know the nature of the call, could not launch the helicopter until morning. When the rescuers arrived, the group had found a stream and declined help.

That night, they activated the emergency beacon again. This time the Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter, which has night vision capabilities, launched into emergency mode.

When rescuers found them, the hikers were worried they might become dehydrated because the water they found tasted salty. They declined an evacuation, and the crew left water.

The following morning the group called f! or help again. This time, according to a park service report, rescuers took them out and cited the leader for "creating a hazardous condition" for the rescue teams.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles says he and the captain were not sleeping or arguing in the cockpit but he wouldn't explain their lapse in response and the detour.

"It was not a serious event, from a safety issue," pilot Richard Cole said late Friday in front of his Salem, Ore., home. "I would tell you more, but I've already told you way too much."

Air traffic controllers and pilots had tried for more than an hour Wednesday night to contact the Minneapolis-bound flight. Officials on the ground alerted National Guard jets to prepare to chase the airliner, though none of the military planes left the runway.

The jet with 144 passengers aboard was being closely monitored by senior White House officials, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told The Associated Press on Saturday. He didn't say if President Barack Obama was informed.

Many aviation safety experts and pilots say the most likely explanation is that the pilots fell asleep along their route from San Diego. NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said fatigue and cockpit distraction are factors that will be looked into.

"We were not asleep; we were not having an argument; we were not having a fight," Cole said, but would not discuss why it took so long for him and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney, of Gig Harbor, Wash., to respond to radio calls.

"I can tell you that airplanes lose contact with the ground people all the time. It happens. Sometimes they get together right away; sometimes it takes awhile before one or the other notices that they are not in contact."

The FAA said Friday letters had been sent informing the pilots they are being investigated by the agency and it is possible their pilot's licenses! could b e suspended or revoked.

Investigators were in the process Saturday of scheduling interviews with the pilots, Holloway said, and audio from the cockpit voice recorder was downloaded at NTSB headquarters on Friday.

But they may not glean much from it. While new recorders retain as much as two hours of cockpit conversation and other noise, the older model aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes just the last 30 minutes - only the very end of the flight after the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin.

The NTSB recommended a decade ago that airlines be required to have two-hour cockpit voice recorders. The standard has been 15- to 30-minute recorders.

Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a rule requiring airplanes and helicopters seating 10 or more people to have the 2-hour audio recordings, but gave the industry time to comply. Aircraft made after March 2010 must come equipped with longer recorders, though many manufacturers have already been including them. Existing planes have until March 2012 to comply.

The FAA rule doesn't require cockpit video recordings, which the NTSB had also recommended. Pilots opposed the video recordings.

Northwest, which was acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating the incident. Cheney and Cole have been suspended. Messages left at Cheney's home were not returned.

The pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were apologetic after the flight, according to a police report released Friday. Cheney and Cole had just started their work week and were coming off a 19-hour layover, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Saturday, citing an internal Northwest document it said was described to the newspaper.

The police report said that the crew indicated they had been having a heated discussion about airline policy.

---

AP Writers Joan Lowy in Washington and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and AP Airlines Writers Joshua Freed in Minneapolis, Harry R. Weber in Atlanta and Dave Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report. Cain reported from Salem, Ore.

---

On the Net:

FlightAware.com tracking of Northwest Flight 188: http://bit.ly/2QV9hX

National Transportation Safety Board http://www.ntsb.gov

SEATTLE (AP) -- Consumers may be shopping for computers again, but Microsoft Corp. still needs businesses to start accomplishing the same.

Microsoft said Friday its acquirement kept falling and its net income alone 18 percent in the last quarter, partly because of the hesitation of businesses, which are added assisting for Microsoft than consumers are.

Big cost cuts at Microsoft made a difference, though, helping the aggregation bear balance well above analysts' expectations. Its stock surged $1.29, nearly 5 percent, to $27.88 in afternoon trading. Earlier in the day, the stock reached a 52-week high of $29.35.

But while the quarterly after-effects looked acceptable to Wall Street, they also showed how abundant Microsoft is still wrestling with a PC industry that remains abundant weaker than a year ago. In the accomplished year the software maker resorted to its aboriginal wide-scale layoffs, and in July it said its annual acquirement had collapsed for the aboriginal time back the aggregation went accessible in 1986.

After skidding for six months, computer shipments rose in the July-September period. But shoppers tended to buy inexpensive laptops and alike smaller, cheaper netbooks, which accept older and less assisting versions of Windows installed. Many consumers also passed on affairs Microsoft's Office, the package that includes Word, Excel and Outlook, which contributed to a 14 percent total decline in acquirement in the quarter.

Businesses watched their spending alike added closely. That abject bottomward Windows after-effects because business-level versions of the operating arrangement are added expensive. And companies that accept cut workers are ordering beneath copies of Office and added Microsoft software frequently acclimated at work. Revenue and profit in the group that! makes O ffice sank alike as businesses spent added on newer software such as Sharepoint.

Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said in a appointment call that businesses could start replacing aging PCs and servers starting in 2010, "although it could be gradual and occur over a brace of years."

Other companies, especially Intel Corp., accept adumbrated they expect things to advance faster, in the accepted quarter.

Microsoft's balance in the last division alone to $3.6 billion, or 40 cents per share, though that was abundant college than the analysts' appraisal of 32 cents per allotment in a Thomson Reuters survey. In the same aeon last year Microsoft earned $4.4 billion, or 48 cents per share.

Microsoft's bottom line was aching by a summer program in which the aggregation let bodies buy a PC with the Windows Vista operating arrangement and afterwards install Windows 7 on the machine for free. That meant Microsoft counted alone bisected of its Windows sales in the aeon and will report the rest as customers upgrade to Windows 7, which was appear this week, through January, when the action expires.

If it had counted its deferred Windows revenue, Microsoft's balance would accept added 8 percent from last year.

Revenue sank to $12.9 billion, though if Microsoft had counted all the Windows sales, it would accept acquaint a smaller 4 percent bead in revenue, to $14.4 billion.

A big acumen that Microsoft's balance would accept increased, if not for the Windows deferrals, despite lower acquirement is that layoffs and added amount cuts are advantageous off. Microsoft employs 4 percent beneath bodies than a year ago and has spent less on marketing and outside contractors, pushing operating costs bottomward added than $600 million compared with a year ago.

Microsoft said costs in the accepted fiscal year, ! which en ds in June, could be as abundant as $400 million lower than ahead expected.

The aggregation also lifted its balance per allotment by resuming purchases of its own stock afterwards a six-month pause, spending $1.45 billion in the quarter.

Even with the buybacks, Microsoft managed to sock away plenty of cash. The aggregation said its cash and short-term investments that could be quickly converted to cash totaled $36.7 billion at the end of the quarter, up from $31.4 billion at the start.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles says there was no action in the cockpit, neither he nor the captain had fallen comatose and the passengers were never in any danger.

But in an interview with The Associated Press two days after he and a colleague blew past their destination as air cartage controlled approved aimlessly to ability them, pilot Richard Cole would not say just what it was that led to them to forget to land Flight 188.

"It was not a austere event, from a assurance issue," Cole said in advanced of his Salem, Ore., home. "I would acquaint you more, but I've already told you way too much."

Air cartage controllers and pilots approved for added than an hour Wednesday night to acquaintance Cole and the flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney, of Gig Harbor, Wash., using radio, cell phone and data messages. On the ground, concerned officials alerted National Guard jets to prepare to hunt the aeroplane from two locations, though none of the aggressive planes larboard the runway.

Cole would not discuss why it took so continued for the pilots to respond to radio calls, "but I can acquaint you that airplanes lose acquaintance with the arena people all the time. It happens. Sometimes they get together appropriate away; sometimes it takes awhile afore one or the added notices that they are not in contact."

A badge address appear Friday said the pilots passed breathalyzer tests and were atoning after the flight. The address additionally said that the crew indicated they had been having a heated altercation about airline policy.

But aerodynamics assurance experts and added pilots were acutely skeptical they could accept become so distracted by shop talk that they forgot to land an airplane a! ccustome d 144 passengers. The best likely possibility, they said, is that the pilots simply fell comatose somewhere along their avenue from San Diego.

"It certainly is a believable explanation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

Unfortunately, the cockpit articulation recorder may not acquaint the tale.

New recorders retain as abundant as two hours of cockpit chat and added noise, but the earlier archetypal aboard Northwest's Flight 188 includes just the last 30 minutes - alone the actual end of Wednesday night's flight after the pilots realized their error over Wisconsin and were heading back to Minneapolis.

Cheney and Cole accept been abeyant and are to be interviewed by National Transportation Safety Board investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is additionally investigating. Messages larboard at Cheney's home were not returned.

FAA agent Tony Molinaro said in general, an unsafe action created by a pilot could lead to the suspension of the person's pilot authorization and possibly a civilian penalty.

With worries about terrorists still high, even after acquaintance was re-established, air cartage controllers asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns.

"Controllers accept a acute faculty of vigilance back we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the reality post-9/11," said Doug Church, a agent for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

NTSB agent Keith Holloway said fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into. The plane's flight recorders were brought to the board's Washington headquarters.

The pilots were finally alerted to their situation back a flight attendant called on an intercom from the cabin.

Voss said a appropriate concern was t! hat the many assurance checks built into the aerodynamics system to anticipate incidents like this one - or to actual them quickly - allegedly were ineffective until the actual end. Not alone couldn't air cartage controllers and added pilots raise the Northwest pilots for an hour, but the airline's dispatcher should accept been trying to ability them as well. The three flight attendants onboard should accept questioned why there were no affairs for landing being made. Brightly lit cockpit displays should accept warned the pilots it was time to land.

"It's apparently article you would say never would happen if this hadn't just happened," Voss said.

---

AP Airlines Writers Joshua Freed in Minneapolis and Harry R. Weber in Atlanta and AP Writers Joan Lowy in Washington, Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Dave Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report. Cain reported from Salem, Ore.

SEATTLE (AP) -- Eighteen people who were arrested as part of a national strike against a violent Mexican drug cartel were affiliates but not members of La Familia, and many seemed to be ordinary citizens, Seattle-area law enforcement officials said Thursday.

Of 16 people indicted in U.S. District Court in Seattle on charges of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and cocaine and to engage in money laundering, 10 pleaded not guilty Wednesday following raids in Monroe, Renton and other municipalities. Four others had been arrested by Thursday morning.

Four people were arrested on federal complaints, which typically precede an indictment. Two of those four were being held in California for return to Seattle.

Arturo J. Barajas Garcia, 32, of Renton, described by authorities as the kingpin of the local operation, was among those who appeared in court in Seattle. According to the complaint, his organization extended as far as Atlanta and members of the group also traveled regularly to California and to Dallas with shipments of drugs and money.

A Drug Enforcement Administration-led task force seized 28 pounds of meth, 22 pounds of cocaine, seven guns and about $200,000 from 19 homes and 22 vehicles searched in Washington state and California.

About 280 federal agents, sheriff's deputies and police from 10 agencies and jurisdictions participated in the raids, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark N. Bartlett told reporters Thursday.

Thousands of telephone conversations were tapped during the investigation, which began locally when King County sheriff's deputies noticed patterns in street-level enforcement operations, DEA acting special agent in charge Mark C. Thomas told reporters in Seattle Thursday.

The agency won't allow La Familia to establ! ish a fo othold Western Washington, Bartlett said.

"We will use wiretaps. We will use drug informants. We will use undercover officers, surveillance - every tool available for our law enforcement personnel to attack these groups will be used, and we will defeat them," he said.

Still at large Thursday were Daniel Barajas, 36, of San Diego, and Cesura Barajas Papilla, 32, of Michoacan state in Mexico. Both are believed to have gone to Mexico, possibly in Apatzingan, a city in Michoacan state where La Familia is based, Bartlett said.

The group led by Barajas Garcia bought drugs in California from La Familia members, including an estimated 20 pounds of pure meth a month, said Adam Cornell, a special assistant U.S. attorney and deputy prosecutor in Snohomish County, where most of the local arrests were made.

But Barajas Garcia and the rest of those charged locally are believed to be affiliates rather than members of the cartel, Cornell said.

Nine arrests were made in Monroe, a town of about 16,000 and home to the state's largest prison complex about 25 miles northeast of Seattle. Some had arrived recently and others had been there for years, and none seemed to be doing any retail drug dealing, Monroe police Cmdr. Steve Clopp said.

"I would say that they were well-integrated members of the community," Clopp said. "A lot of them keep up the everyday appearance of work and family."

One house seemed rundown and "not your normal family dwelling," but the rest "fit right into the community," Clopp said. "In fact a few citizens in a few of the locations described them as nice, quiet neighbors...

"It was a very interesting investigation to see how well criminals can blend into the community."

About 15 children ages 2 to 17 were living in the houses. About half were placed with relatives and the o! thers - mostly younger - were referred to Child Protective Services to determine proper custody, he said.

About a dozen people were arrested in Monroe on state charges as a result of what was found in the raids, he said.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- In the largest single strike at Mexican drug operations in the U.S., authorities arrested more than 300 people in a sting that demonstrates a young cartel's vast reach north of the border.

The tentacles of "La Familia" extend coast to coast and deep into America's heartland, with arrests announced Thursday in 38 cities from Boston to Seattle and from St. Paul, Minn., to Raleigh, N.C.

Drug deals went down in Oklahoma parking lots, suppliers were advised to weld drugs into tire rims for transport, and in the Dallas and Seattle areas, dozens of children were removed from houses where authorities found drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

Perhaps more than any other cartel, La Familia projects a Robin Hood image. The Drug Enforcement Administration said the group is "philosophically opposed to the sale of methamphetamine to Mexicans, and instead supports its export to the United States for consumption by Americans."

Mexican police say the gang uses religion and family morals to recruit. The gang has hung banners in towns saying they do not tolerate drug use, or attacks on women or children.

One of the gang's alleged recruiters, detained last spring, ran drug rehabilitation centers, helping addicts to recover and then forcing them to work for the drug gang or be killed, according to Mexico Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna.

La Familia is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the handful of other Mexican gangs that control the flow of drugs into the United States, fueled by Colombian cocaine suppliers. The Sinaloa, Juarez, Gulf and Tijuana cartels have roots that go back many years, even decades.

But in its short history, La Familia is believed to have emerged as the biggest supplier of methampheta! mine to the United States and, increasingly, a peddler of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.

Complaints that were unsealed across the country portray an organization that spread deep into Middle America, down to small-time sales.

In Oklahoma, authorities seized about 20 pounds of methamphetmaine, two pounds of cocaine, six weapons and several thousand dollars. They identified Ruben Garcia, 29, as a major supplier in the northeast part of the state.

Agents spotted Garcia and his partners dealing drugs over several months at restaurants, grocery stores and Wal-Mart parking lots in the Tulsa area, according to court documents. In one tapped phone call Oct. 9, Garcia counseled a supplier in Mexico who helped arrange a shipment in McAllen, Texas, that the easiest way to smuggle drugs is welded inside tire rims of vehicles.

Court records do not list an attorney for Garcia.

In North Carolina, targeted cells operated from the Raleigh area to the eastern cities of Rocky Mount and Greenville, a region with a large Hispanic population to help the targets blend in and quick access to three interstate highways. They made four arrests Wednesday but totaled 49 arrests over the past year.

In Nashville, after more than a year of surveillance, agents converged on a home when two people arrived in a Toyota Camry from Atlanta Aug. 14, according to a complaint. A search of the vehicle discovered hidden compartments that "contained nine similarly wrapped packages, each of which were the size of a kilogram of cocaine." One package tested positive for cocaine.

Inside the home, agents found drug ledgers, a money counter and a loaded pistol. At another home, they found about 50 pounds of marijuana, several loaded handguns and two bulletproof vests.

Texas Child Protective Services removed 20 children from houses in the Dallas area wh! en autho rities executed 44 search warrants, said James Capra, the DEA's special agent in charge in Dallas. All the homes where children were found had drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

The sting reached into small towns hundreds of miles from Mexico.

Nine arrests were made in Monroe, Wash., with a population of about 16,000 and home to the state's largest prison about 25 miles northeast of Seattle. None seemed to be doing any retail drug dealing, Monroe police Cmdr. Steve Clopp said.

"I would say that they were well-integrated members of the community," Clopp said. "A lot of them keep up the everyday appearance of work and family."

In the Inland Empire, a cluster of east Los Angeles suburbs where 25 people were arrested and 156 pounds of methamphtamine seized, most suspects are illegal immigrants from Mexico who came to the United States to work for La Familia, said Stephen Azzam, DEA assistant special agent in charge in Riverside, Calif.

Methamphetamine was shipped from the Inland Empire, an area with three interstate highways, to cities including Atlanta and Chicago, Azzam said.

La Familia is known as unusually violent, even by Mexico's standards.

After the arrest of one of its leaders in July in Mexico, the cartel launched an offensive against federal forces, killing 18 police officers and two soldiers over a weekend. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.

"They are one of the most violent, if not the most violent, cartel in Mexico right now," said Michael Braun, who retired as the DEA's chief of operations last year.

La Familia operates methamphetamine "superlabs" in Mexico that produce up to 100 pounds of the drug in eight hours, a sharp contrast to small-time labs in the United ! States t hat have supplied American addicts, said Braun.

The organization was founded around 2004 and really took off in 2006, Braun said.

The arrests in places such as Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles suggest that its U.S. distribution network is sophisticated, said Scott Stewart, an analyst at the Stratfor consultancy in Austin, Texas, who follows the Mexican drug trade.

"Those are beautiful interstate (highway) hubs," Stewart said. "It's looking they have ramped up very quickly."

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Associated Press writers Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., Julie Watson in Mexico City, Rochelle Hines in Oklahoma City, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tenn., Tim Klass in Seattle, Danny Robbins in Dallas and Gillian Flaccus in San Bernardino, Calif. contributed to this report. Spagat reported from San Diego.