You really think so? If they skate by this one SWA is really in a world of hurt.
If the company doesn't take significant disciplinary action the FAA surely will. Perhaps not quite termination but serious action.
Well, the Deltoids who landed a 767 on the taxiway at ATL in 2009 got some training and were put back on the line within less than two months as I recall.
I don't go into ATL much and I remember earlier thinking that a late sidestep landing on 27R at night with the approach lights turned up for 27L was spring loaded for disaster. I did it but was not at all comfortable and kept checking to make sure the more dimly lit runway was the right one to land on.
Anyway, in the Delta incident there were indeed some mitigating circumstances, IOE line check, check airman medical emergency, etc.
And the NTSB decided that fatigue was a factor:
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of this incident was the flight crew’s failure to identify the correct landing surface due to fatigue.
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletter...11-012-015.pdf
If the SWA crew weren't shucking and jiving and talking about women, used cars and politics like the EAL crew at CLT four decades ago, they may get remedial training in airport navaid setup, CRM and expectation bias and be given line checks to return to duty. Even if they were fired, history has shown that the union will usually get their jobs back. And often the feds will work a deal to accept the remedial training in lieu of further discipline in cases I've seen.
But, obviously a lot depends on what is on the CVR and whether most procedures, callouts and paperwork were correct.
I assume the Atlas pilots from the Wichita Dreamlifter incident are back on the line by now, anybody know?
finally, the egpws would issue a warning if you were more that a few miles from the programmed destination airport and below a minimum altitude agl, like 500 feet or so. I heard this warning going into San Juan
PR once when a couple of VOR's were notamed out and we had some map shift over water.
I'm not sure all EGPWS's see the destination airport for this Mode 4 submode stuff. I'm under the impression that a hard surfaced runway over 3500 feet long in the database will suffice to make the EGWPS think you're on the right profile as you descend toward it.