Dec. 11, 2005, 3:56PM
Auto-braking shut off on Southwest jet that crashed
Associated Press
CHICAGO - The Southwest Airlines Co. jet that skidded off a snowy runway and into a Chicago street, killing a 6-year-old boy in a car, was equipped with automatic brakes, but the carrier's chief executive says the system was turned off so that the pilot could manually control the plane's landing. Chief Executive Gary Kelly also said the plane had been serviced the day before Thursday night's crash and showed no mechanical problems.
It was the first fatal crash in Southwest's 35-year history.
During a news conference at Southwest's Dallas headquarters before he left for Chicago, Kelly said it was too early to pinpoint the cause of the accident, which occurred during a snowstorm that reduced visibility at Midway Airport to between one-fourth and one-half mile.
Kelly said the role, if any, of the brakes won't be known until federal officials finish their investigation, which could take many months. The National Transportation Safety Board began its investigation within hours of the accident.
Kelly, however, defended the airline's policy of having pilots turn off the automatic braking system.
"We let our flight crews make the determination to brake the aircraft," he said. "It's just a choice, and we think that it's been obviously very, very successful over a long period of time."
Automatic brakes have been used on commercial airliners for many years, but they are not on all planes. For example, JetBlue Airways Corp. operates Airbus jets with auto-brakes and Embraer planes without them.
Jenny Dervin, a spokeswoman for JetBlue, said the airline requires pilots to use auto-braking under some low-visibility and bad-weather situations but declined to say whether that would have included Thursday night's conditions in Chicago.
At Delta Air Lines Inc., "They are on our fleets, and yes, they are used," said spokeswoman Gina Laughlin. She said pilots had some discretion in when to use the auto-brakes.
Officials at other carriers did not return calls or declined to comment on their policies.
On the Boeing 737-700, the automatic brakes are accompanied by an anti-skid system. They work like the antilock brakes on a car, using sensors to apply and release brakes quickly to prevent a skid.
Modern airliners are highly automated — on autopilot, they can take off, fly and land without human intervention — but pilots frequently override the automated systems.
Boeing does not tell airlines when pilots should use auto-brake systems, said spokeswoman Liz Verdier.
"There is not a right or a wrong way to do that," Verdier said. "They are used or not used in accordance with conditions or airline operational procedures." She said she saw nothing unusual in Kelly's statement that Southwest doesn't use automatic brakes.
At the federal safety board's request, Boeing on Friday sent an investigator and a systems engineer to help with the probe into the cause of Thursday night's accident.
The crash was reminiscent of a March 2000 accident in which a Southwest jet overran a runway at Burbank airport in Los Angeles, stopping just short of a gas station. The safety board said the accident was probably due to the crew landing the plane at too fast a speed.
In its final report on the Burbank accident, the safety board said the pilots probably could have kept the plane inside the airport fence had they applied maximum manual brakes immediately on touchdown.
The plane involved in Thursday night's accident was delivered to Southwest in July 2004. Southwest operates only Boeing 737s, and the 700 is the latest update to that model.
The plane had undergone a routine maintenance check Wednesday in Phoenix, Kelly said.
"There were no indications that the aircraft was experiencing any kind of maintenance problems," he said.
Southwest has no immediate plans to change operations at Midway, one of the carrier's largest operations with 196 daily departures. Southwest had operated there for 20 years without a previous incident, said Kelly, who termed the 6,500-foot runway adequate.
Still, the accident raised questions about Southwest's operations at smaller airports, some of which, like Midway, are surrounding by houses and commercial buildings.
Some Dallas residents have raised safety arguments against Southwest's plans to expand long-haul flights from Love Field. Kelly said Thursday's accident should have no bearing on the debate in Congress over expanding Love Field, which has an 8,800-foot runway.
"They are obviously different airports with different runways and different configurations," he said.