The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating yet another incident involving a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737. This incident is especially strange, since conditions were good, so one has to wonder what exactly was going on with the pilots.
Continue reading: Southwest 737 Buzzes Oklahoma City Suburbs In Bizarre Incident
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Wasn't there a similar situation where a B747 Dreamlifter (dedicated freighter for B787 program) got confused and landed at the wrong nearby airport.
Could it be that the Southwest crew got confused with the nearby Wiley Post airport while approaching Oklahoma airport? Also, pilot fatigue could play into this as it was just past midnight. How many legs had the pilots performed prior to the approach in question. Their body clocks could have been way off.
X (Twitter) is a joke: "The FAA is investigating an incident on a Southwest Airlines flight after a plane plunged to roughly 525 feet and came close to a high school during its approach into Oklahoma City." Plunged? Near a school? Really??
It appears that Southwest has taken United's place in the number of pilot errors
If it turns out the pilots were in fact heading for the wrong airport it wouldn’t be the first time for Southwest:
/s ....maybe they should raise the min hr requirement to hold the ATP rating to 15,000 hrs. That should fix all the safety issues.
Slight correction on the runway - this flight had been cleared for the visual approach to runway 13 (the full audio is on LiveATC). It looks like they were on the correct heading for the runway but obviously descending way too early.
Many pilots would not allow themselves to be put in the position the Southwest pilots put themselves in. Last leg of the flight day and landing past midnight a lot of pilots would not have requested a visual approach to a runway that is 2000 feet shorter then the main runways and doesn’t have a precision approach. Most pilots would opt for a visual approach to 17R or 17L and would have backed themselves up by loading the ILS approach into the box and would use the autopilot too. Southwest’s pilots have a reputation for trying to get into and out of an airport as quickly as they can. Most of the time it works out, this night it didn’t.
Sort of shocks me as some airlines require at night to back up a visual approach with an instrument in the box. Heck, Lufthansa doesn't allow visual approaches at night (search YouTube for the ATC of a recent incident with LH at SFO where Norcal Approach got pissy they wanted an ILS and made them circle for long enough to have to divert to OAK for low fuel).
OKC runway 13 does have a RNAV/GPS approach. Around the time these guys were at 500 feet, they should have been about 4000 per the plate for that approach. Airline pilot blancolirio on YouTube walked through this as well.
Yup. Appears to be a lower than ideal approach to 13. They got too low too soon.