Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Two Delta Air Lines Inc. pilots who became distracted and overflew their destination didn’t act like professionals, and the carrier doesn’t condone their behavior, Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson said.

“This is really a basic in flying an airplane -- that you pay attention and that you act professionally, and that crew did not,” Anderson told employees in his weekly recorded message. “We’ll deal with it accordingly.”

The Oct. 21 incident involving Flight 188 of Delta’s Northwest unit was “an anomaly” that isn’t representative of Atlanta-based Delta’s 70,000 employees, Anderson said. He urged them not to be distracted by press coverage of the case.

Anderson’s comments went beyond his remarks in an Oct. 26 statement, in which he reiterated the airline’s commitment to safety and said Delta was cooperating with U.S. investigators. The pilots, Captain Timothy Cheney and First Officer Richard Cole, have been suspended and had their licenses revoked.

The aviators told investigators they lost track of their position en route to Minneapolis from San Diego while discussing Delta’s flight-scheduling system, overshooting the airport by 150 miles (241 kilometers). Flight 188 was out of radio contact for 91 minutes, the Federal Aviation Administration has said.

‘Clear Violation’

“It is a clear violation of our rules to have laptops open in the cockpit,” Anderson said. “We need to be clear in establishing our values in that regard, and I want you to hear that clearly from me.”

Delta said Oct. 26 that violations of the computers rule “will result in termination.”

Cole, 54, didn’t immediately return a call to his home in Salem, Oregon, and a home number couldn’t be located for Cheney, 53, who lives in Gig Harbor, Washington.

“We’re not responding to Mr. Anderson’s letter,” Kelly Regus, a spokeswoman for Delta’s chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association, said in an e-mail.

The incident is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. The FAA revoked the pilots’ licenses while saying they eventually could reapply for certification to fly.

Revoking the pilots’ licenses “was the right thing to do,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters today in Washington. “You can’t have pilots sitting in front of a laptop when they’re supposed to be flying a plane,” he said.

Slow Reporting Criticized

The Federal Aviation Administration violated its own rules by taking 40 minutes to contact the military about the non- responsive flight, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, said today at a Senate aviation subcommittee hearing in Washington.

“It is supposed to be an immediate communication from the FAA,” Hutchison said. “It could have been something that was much more of a problem in a terrorist plot.”

Controllers should have notified defense authorities more quickly, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said in a statement. “We are conducting an internal review and will require retraining on proper notification procedures when we lose radio contact with aircraft,” he said.

There may need to be a federal rule banning laptops in the cockpit, Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said at the hearing on reauthorization of the National Transportation Safety Board. The overflight by the Delta pilots was “pretty astounding,” Dorgan, the subcommittee chairman, said.

Most airlines ban the use of personal electronic devices in the cockpit in flight. Depending on what investigators learn from Flight 188, UAL Corp.’s United Airlines probably will use the findings to update pilot training, CEO Glenn Tilton said.

United, American, Southwest

“We’ll take it on board in our training and learn from it, simulate it,” he said in Oct. 27 an interview in New York. “We are very attentive to all details.”

American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp., declined to comment on “another carrier’s issue or what may come out of it,” said Tim Wagner, a spokesman for the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline.

Southwest Airlines Co. incorporates “a number of different scenarios” into pilot training, said Beth Harbin, a spokeswoman, for the Dallas-based carrier.

“Anytime there’s an opportunity to learn something, that’s a benefit to everyone,” she said. “You incorporate it into your training because you don’t want it to happen to you.”

Chuck Magill, Southwest’s vice president of flight operations, this week included a reminder in his monthly newsletter for pilots on “avoiding distractions and practicing professionalism and vigilance in the cockpit at all times,” Harbin said. Southwest declined to disclose the text of the reminder.

Delta rose 17 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $7.36 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have tumbled 36 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.s@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 29, 2009 16:44 EDT