National Digest

Lawyer blasts balloon confession

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A mother's confession that she and her husband faked their 6-year-old son's disappearance in a runaway balloon shouldn't have been made public, an attorney for the father said.

Denver attorney David Lane blasted Larimer County officials for releasing documents Friday in the investigation into whether Mayumi and Richard Heene staged a hoax, saying the papers should have remained sealed until arrests were made.

"It's further proof of what that sheriff will do to further his own agenda and try to make it unfair to the Heenes," Lane said.

He said the Heenes haven't even seen the affidavit, which was used to get a warrant to search their home.

Sheriff Jim Alderden and Larimer County District Attorney Larry Abrahamson said releasing such documents is common if there's not an order to seal a document.

Pilot denies crew was napping

MINNEAPOLIS - The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles said 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.

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.