Southwest Airlines can’t seem to stay out of the news lately when it comes to concerning safety incidents. A couple of days ago I first wrote about yet another near catastrophe, which might just be the scariest one we’ve seen so far. I wanted to provide an update, as I just saw an interesting analysis…
Continue reading: Terrifying: Southwest 737 Descends To 150 Feet Above Tampa Bay
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
What's worse is that Southwest has a reputation for being safe because there's a lot of ex-military flying for them. It's clear that this is not an indicator of safety.
Definite kudos to that air traffic controller, one of the most stressful jobs out there.
That was the thing when I listen to the ATC broadcast. The pilot seem to be clueless to the fact that he was so low. Luckily the controller kept his cool and got the pilot to go round.
This isn’t the same Southwest Max 8 that flew at 400ft in Hawaii back in April is it?
100% - it’s going to lead to people losing their lives in an avoidable accident some point . Scary stuff
@ Oliver @ DEI -- I'm curious, do you have any reason to believe that this had anything to do with DEI? Any reason at all? Or are you just racist?
Can we trust the ADS-B data on this one?
Not a pilot, but wouldn’t a wrongly set altimeter also distort the planes ADS-B?
So only true radar data from ATC (which is also not perfect) could give out the real altitude?
Please correct barometric altitude for pressure before jumping to scary conclusions as to its height.
They are racist
It is not ok for racists to straight out say racist thing theae days. They need to be politically correct.
They are weak wimpy racist hidding in their parents basement or in Russia.
Did you mean to say “DUI will cause deaths”? Because then I totally agree with you.
Fun fact, ValuJet merged into AirTran, which then merged into Southwest. ValuJet had a terrible safety record and the FAA was considering grounding the airline before it was merged into AirTran.
Great article Ben. Some of your compatriots wrote fluff articles that had no depth or details, and their lacked any reasonable ability for a reader to follow the chain of events. Thanks for nailing this one!
Did we ever find out what caused the dutch roll one? Was it pilot error or a plane issue?
This one is awful. For any pilots here, does the "Low altitude, pull up!" warning only work if the altimeter is set correctly? Or is there some sort of backup there if the pilots forgot to adjust it? I wonder if there would be a way to link data communication text messages to a cockpit warning, e.g. a METAR ATIS not lining up with the plane ATIS leads to a warning on the flight displays. Just spitballing as someone with 0 flights hours!
Seems like the altimeter setting should be automated, with gps accuracy the plane should be able to tell its altitude
Insane that it was that low, considering runway 10 is right after the Bean Parkway which is probably 50 feet in height which traffic uses to get to the terminals. No excuse to be that low. Seems they weren't even set up properly with runway 10, seems to be to the side almost where the terminals are.
FR24 already discloses its displayed altitudes are standard atmosphere setting (29.92). So when the actual setting is 30.14, we're talking about 250 feet should be added, so the plane's lowest point is actually 400 feet.
Unfortunate comment. DEI is something that should be scrutinized, along with everything else in an attempt to fix what is becoming a pattern of serious safety issues. Nothing should be off the table.
Notice how 99% of "near misses" being reported are here in the U.S and not overseas, yet the last dozen+ hull losses on commercial aircraft all happened overseas.
Supports my theory that this is normal everywhere, and always has been... the difference being the publicity and public interest in the last few years within the U.S. (particularly since everyone loves to politicize it all).
Heck, I wouldn't have even tagged the other days LAX incident as a "significant event"... albeit since it made the news, it suddenly was.
Yes. The plane was damaged on the ground at MSY overnight the week before the incident due to high winds. Had nothing to do with the pilots. The plane is back in service now.
https://apnews.com/article/southwest-airlines-dutch-roll-ntsb-fc0883c8a42270fcee9699b0fe231668
No, that was N8788L. Very good question and it prompted me to look it up. That would have been quite the shock if it was the same aircraft.
2nd Southwest pilot in 2 months who thinks flying under bad weather is a good plan.
@Oliver Keep your racist thoughts to yourself. We are talking about travel on this site, not paranoid beliefs.
Actually the concept of DEI is fundamentally racist, if you think about it for a second.
That’s very concerning. I read about the Hawaii incident last month, too. Thank goodness for the air traffic controller.
In house education and flight simulator time for all pilots. The more adept they are. And prepared to avoid preventable negative outcomes.
its being reported they missed a condo building before the bridge. SWA pilot friends are telling me they have a software problem for RNAV approaches which this was to runway 10.
its time for the FAA to step in. You can thank ATC for not crashing a perfectly good plane. Remember Lion Air did this into Bali.
I’m confused - the Courtney Campbell is a road that goes from TPA due west to Clearwater - there is no reason for a plane landing in Tampa to fly over Courtney Campbell - correction needed in OP
Hate to say it, but the "Warrior Spirit" is gone as long as the old guard is at the helm. Overpaid and complacent employees and culture, also related to their recent financial woes.
The facts are we have had the safest years in aviation history prior to covid. We are now forcing highly trained and qualified pilots to retire while replacing the with less qualified pilots and in a lot if cases very minimal qualifications. The unions padded the politicians pockets not to raise the retirement age the companies love it because they can charge the same whole paying less. In the end the public will pay the price
737 MAX again - you're still on my banned list - will never fly one. If I ever encounter an equipment swap to a 737 MAX, I'm walking back up the jet bridge !
All ADS-B data is pressure altitude, so moving the cockpit altimeter setting will not affect ADS-B data.
@Ben maybe you could just have some auto-scan on your site for "DEI" and just autodelete/ban. Would make OMAAT a much nicer place.
RA is not for terrain. Most likely they had the gear down and flaps near the final setting. If so, as long as the descent rate wasn't excessive there would be no warning. My guess is the autopilot was off since VNAV would have flown a nice descent. Even disconnected there would have been flight director commands to bring the nose up.
This sounds more like a pilot error than anything having to do with the equipment.
IMO DEI itself is racist, as it uses race/color of one's skin as a determination in hiring instead of demonstrated ability. As MLK said: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." DEI does the opposite.
ValuJet and AirTran merged in 1997, and then Airtran and Southwest merged in 2011. It's pretty unlikely this (or any of Southwest's other recent problems) are related to an airline that ceased to exist 27 years ago, and is two mergers removed.
Those older pilots still would've had to go in short order, whether the age was raised by 5 years or not.
If that was the sole (or even just primary) reason for the current issues we're seeing, then it only means we'd have to face them in 2029 instead of 2024. Hardly a solution.
It's way deeper than that.
Don’t expect the NTSB to help the managing director’s husband is a SWA captain!
And Boeing merged with Macdonnell Douglas in 1997 and incorporated all their shortcomings and safety hazards, which only came to light a few years ago with the 737 Max.
Sure is funny that southwest is the only airline having issues with flying. Guess this happens when you hire second and third rate pilots.
GPS altitude is notoriously unreliable. No licensed pilot (and I am one) would ever use it. I have never flown a plane equipped with a radar altimeter so I don’t know if that would have been a potential save here, but GPS is never used as the primary source of altitude data.
DEI also includes women. It’s not just about race. When your hiring processes are based on checking boxes and not based on merit, you deserve to criticized. Lives are at risk. This isn’t McDonalds folks.
Very true! DEI is fine so long as the requirements for any given positions don’t lessen purely to meet a metric!
Due to winds there is Rwy 10 thatlines up with the CC which may have looked like a runway coming through bad weather.
https://youtu.be/sZsQOvOL9zY?si=C0XV-KoTHhlNS6mu
Yeah.. Great question; Why aren’t local altimeter settings auto-entered by computers in 2024 ?
Can you clarify that it wasn’t 150 feet? With 30.14, it would need to be adjusted to 370 feet.
@ Ben... Olive and DEI are either Trolls, idiots or racist. Or probably all three.
avherald
ADS-B data suggest the aircraft descended to about 370 feet AGL/MSL, about 150 feet measured to standard pressure (which puts the aircraft 220 feet higher than the transponder suggests due to ambient pressure at 30.14 in/Hg), about 4.2nm before the runway threshold before going around.
I would agree with your explanation. It was as though the causeway was calling to the pilots..."land here". The "RA" (radio altitude), which provides actual height above terrain, water or land, would have also been telling them (audibly and visually), regardless of the altimeter setting, how low they were. I'm afraid the crew thought they were right where they were supposed to be. I've never landed on 10, so I don't recall the approach plates available for further guidance. The controller probably saved the day. "For the grace of Good, there go I"
My god SWA has MAJOR ISSUES it seems! Maybe time to fly ANOTHER AIRLINE!! Plus they can KEEP THEIR MAX!!
"Racists incoming in 3....2...."
They started long before you posted this, sadly. The RWNJ's leader has given them permission to wear their racism on their sleeves. Sad.
How did the airline get the passengers from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa? and what compensation did they get?
This DEI stuff is out of control, I’m retired 40 year airline pilot and I have flown with pilots of all races and all them performed splendidly with no discernible difference in performance based on race. Have you never heard of the Tuskegee Airmen? One of the reasons your writting in English and not German is because of those excellent and brave pilots! Really, you need to become more educated.
I’m deeply confused by how all these incidents are happening with no reports from the passengers afterward. Is everyone that zombied out and unaware of their surroundings nowadays? Not even looking out the window when something feels weird? It just seems hard to imagine you don’t notice suddenly flying very near the ground then climbing again and landing somewhere else. Thanks for the write up.
Haha too bad... both pilots are white. Maybe the industry should open up to more qualified DEIs instead of gatekeeping it to be so white?
It's a company and work ethic issues that are the problem. Pilots have about the best working conditions in the universe; they make a more than comfortable income even with their working hours capped at ~1000 hr/yr.\
They ARE BEING PAID TO BE PAID 110% alert when they are in the cockpit and to have continuous self re-education when on the ground.... and they have have tons of time to do this in hotel rooms on layovers etc.
A lot of Gen Z'ers are a selfish bunch who have poor work ethics and unrealistic expectations on "entitlements". If the captain is flying the plane, it's up to the first officer to be totally alert on the rest of the logistics and questioning (situational awareness) what is going on, particularly during bad weather landing .... instead of sitting back being scared and "going for the ride". Many, many an aircraft accident caused by pilot error was because of poor cockpit communications between the pilots, particularly on decision making prrocess and having clear consensus on actions in the cockpit.
Haven't we learned from the past?
What an idiotic comment about "737 Max" again. It still takes skilled pilot to get a plane off the ground and then land them. Even with all the automation in the world, the procedures during takeoff and landing are done with autopilot disengaged.
This is clearly pilot error and lackadaisicle or incompetent pilots. Didn't they do any pre-flight briefing knowning very well they were flying to bad weather and shouldn't they have triple scoured approaches to aiport etc.....
It’s so funny how blame always refocuses on the younger generation. I remember when people were shaking their fist at the clouds talking about how millennials like me were entitled participation trophy kids with bad work ethic and unrealistic plans. Looks like now it rolled off of us onto the kids of today.
I thought the same thing as I have lived in Tampa for 17 years and fly all the time. I've never landed on runway 10 and didn't even know that was an option. Most of the time we approach from the south and land facing north but occasionally we land facing south. Never landed coming in from the west heading east. It sounds like they were higher than 150 feet but ATC saved the day as there are some fairly tall buildings that they would have flown over at the end of the Courtney Campbell causeway before they got to the airport.
I am a retired airline captain with many thousand hours in the B737.
Most Legacy air carriers tune in the ILS (Instrument Landing System) frequency for the landing runway. That gives us guidance and vertical clearance for that particular runway. If we make major deviations from the approach, we receive both verbal and visual warnings. In every FAR Part 121 airplane there is a GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System). That too gives us verbal and visual warnings if we are too low, etc. We also set our altitude that we want to hold or go to on our Flight Management System which can be connected to our auto pilot system. That too gives us audio and visual warnings.
For this crew to be so screwed up that they were off course and all over the sky up and down, something was very wrong. I suspect they were disoriented not knowing where they were. They obviously lacked situational awareness of where they were up, down or course wise.
The warning signals from the Altitude Hold FMS, ILS, or GPWS are loud and LOUDER. The ONLY way that they can be ignored or not heard is by disabling those systems. For normal operations, disabling the GPWS is a flight violation. The GPWS control panel is safety wired. If that wire is broken, there is a mandatory maintenance write up explaining why. Regardless of what in the hell was going on in the cockpit of this airplane, it is clear that this crew ignored / disabled ALL of these warning devices. For that reason alone, they should be terminated.
As a former union representative with 22,000 hours of accident free flying time, I do not make this statement lightly. This near disaster took place with INTENT. Both pilots are responsible for the safety of the passengers and crew. If they were lost, then say so. If they had a problem with the airplane then say so. To my knowledge none of this took place. I am familiar with this airline and it appears that they foster a cowboy mentality by cutting corners to save time and money which almost always compromises safety. Ref. this airline had a similar near mishap while making an approach into Honolulu. Folks, two near misses with disaster is not a coincidence.
Good analysis Dan. SWA says their working with the FAA to determine what went wrong. Huh? Herb Kelleher would have fired them right after they landed in Fort Lauderdale.
No where does it indicate that they had 29.92 set on their altimeters! They would have set the actual pressure setting of 30.14 when they received the TPA ATIS, which would have been when they were about 25 miles from the airport. So....150 feet, 4 miles from the airport, busted Minimum Descent Altitude; equals the SWA Cowboy Culture attitude (If we duck under these clouds, I'm sure we'll be able to see the airport). Which I'm sure is being slowly weaned out of the SWA Flight Operations mentality. The guys and gals have just been lucky so far. "Who's a moron? You're a moron."
I believe the Controller is required to announce the current Altimeter setting when there is an altitude deviation. It's not actually an indication that the pilots have an incorrect setting in their altimeter (just that they may have screwed up).