Southwest B737 Overrun @ Chcago MDW

[pilotusa]

RRAAMJET posted:

"Unbelievable comment here in Dallas from a member of SWA's Go-team - 'We had no fatalities on the plane, so that keeps our record intact'."


I think that SWA attitude, so arrogantly prevalent through the years, is about to be excised so very painfully by the FAA and the media. The darlings are about to become pariahs, at least for the short term.

This should be an interesting investigation. I would not want to be part of the cockpit crew for this one. My guess is that the FAA will manage to pin a large portion of the blame on the pilots. There is never flown the "perfect" approach and landing, but the SWA pilots on this flight will now have to account for their lack of perfection. (Being only human is not an acceptable answer, BTW.)

[RatherBeFlying]

EMAS

That makes 3 recent overruns, AF358, Teterboro and now Midway, where EMAS could have made a save if it had been there.

[breguet]

In Canada, we used the Canadian Runway Friction Index (CFRI) to help us determine if we can land on contaminated runways.

By assuming there was loose snow on packed snow of 3mm or less, considering that the runway length (from previous posters) is 6255 feet or 5880 feet with the displaced threshold and, assuming a landing distance (not factored) for a 737 of 3000 feet on a dry surface (I do not fly the 737, therefore this distance is an assumption), reading the CFRI chart we find that for these conditions, the CFRI would be between 0.1 and 0.4.

For a 3000 feet unfactored landing distance, we find that we need the following distances to stop the aircraft:

0.18 = 7920ft
0.20 = 7640ft
0.25 = 7060ft
0.30 = 6950ft
0.35 = 6220ft
0.40 = 5910ft

[captplaystation]

RatherBeFlying, agree entirely,but that costs money,crucifying pilot's doesn't.

[Wake Turbulence]

Link to the KBDL incident which involved an American Airlines MD-80.

[ATPMBA]

Crew Experience in snow?

Ground school is great but theory can only can take one so far.
I wonder how much experince these guys have on cold weather ops.

Several years ago Air Florida put one in at Washington National, the pilots were talking about doing a "soft-field" takeoff in a B737!!!!

[repulo]

ATPMBA,

doing a soft field take off in a single is adding backpressure to lift the nose gear, exactly what boeing flight crew manual says you should do on contaminated rwy to reduce drag caused by the nose gear.
Not my invention, it´s boeing´s baby.

So better do reading then blameing.

[barit1]

Many years ago I assembled a report re hardware damage from ground-level icing. In a nutshell, the Great Lakes region, esp. Chicago, was among the worst in the world.

And SW has been flying there a long time.

[pilotusa]

barit1 wrote:

"Many years ago I assembled a report re hardware damage from ground-level icing. In a nutshell, the Great Lakes region, esp. Chicago, was among the worst in the world.

And SW has been flying there a long time."


And as we who compete against Southwest have been saying for quite a while: "It's only a matter of time...."

[oliversarmy]

"And as we who compete against Southwest have been saying for quite a while: "It's only a matter of time...."

Its being said about a LCC this side of the pond too !

[av8boy]

I heard SW held for 30 minutes, why the hold?

There was a ground delay program in effect for snow at MDW. I believe SWA took a delay on the ground in BWI, then got two or three turns in the hold at FL300 over northwestern Indiana before starting down.

Dave

[RRAAMJET]

I have to say, in persuit of cheaper airport operating costs, SWA does rather push the envelope in terms of the 'secondary' fields they prefer to operate from:

Islip, Long Island (v. short)
Orange County (ditto)
Midway (ditto)
Houston Hobby (short)

In addition, there seems to be a 'hurry, hurry' air to their ops, eg landing at ELP with large tailwinds to roll right up to the gate. Nothing illegal, but just pushing the envelope, it seems to me. It was just reported by NTSB that this jet landed with a wind from 090 (on rwy31, with contamination....)

Prudence, prudence.

[PaperTiger]

KORD is only about 15 miles away, they could of landed there and bussed the people to KMDW. SW is point-point so the paxs didn't have to make any connections

MDW is a connection/transfer point in Southwest's system. Not a hub like DAL or PHX but busy enough.

As for ORD, I doubt there would have been slots and certainly no gates. A 'local' divert to IND or STL (WN stations) would have been more likely, but if all area WX was cr*p maybe that wasn't a workable option.

[A-FLOOR]

FI now states the plane returned form mainenance only two days ago (one day before the accident):

“The aircraft was released from the airline’s Phoenix maintenance facility on December 7, 2005,� says Southwest. “There were no indications that the aircraft was experiencing any type of maintenance problems.�

http://www.flightinternational.com/A...n+tragedy.html

[Flying Mech]

Ok the Wx conditions are a factor in this Incident but the Bigger issue is why did the NLG of an 18 month old A/C collapse on the landing roll. I heard somewhere a few years ago of an Incident like this with a NLG collapse caused by touchdown on the NLG first. Time will tell when the NTSB/FAA have completed their investigations & FDR & CVR have been analyzed. May the 8 year old boy RIP.

[NigelOnDraft]

FM...

From where do you have reliable info the NLG collapsed before the Ac left the runway ????

[PAXboy]

I think that SWA attitude, so arrogantly prevalent through the years, is about to be excised so very painfully by the FAA and the media.

It is only to be expected that every new company will reach the point when they have a fatality (direct or indirect). Every transport company and many ordinary ones too, have to face this day. In humans we call it 'growing up' and 'maturing'. Whether the gowing up is being done by humans in their personal way, or by humans as a company, it always has it's horrible times. Hopefully, the child - and the company - become adults and are the better for what they have learnt.

Some individuals - and some companies - never grow up. This usually leads to prison and bankruptcy, or both. This crash and death/s will not harm SWA. It is what they do in the next 12 months and through the enquiry, that will harm them - or see them mature a little.

[captplaystation]

RRAAMJET,sounds like many peoples description of a "little" company on this side of the pond,and sure,pushing ever closer to the limits does leave a lot less in reserve on the occasions when something else happens;don't forget that the last major overrun was Air Chance & I've never heard of them as being described as a lo-co!

[AirRabbit]

Several years ago Air Florida put one in at Washington National, the pilots were talking about doing a "soft-field" takeoff in a B737!!!!

Aww, come on. That Air Florida pilot was not planning to make a “soft-field” takeoff. Go back and re-read the transcript of the CVR. He was talking of taking off the nose wheel and then letting the airplane fly off the ground with very little rotation (only that which would get the nose gear off the ground – like a soft field takeoff).

As has been said, even on this thread, it’s a lot easier to “trash” the crew right away, than it is to wade through all the necessary facts before becoming judgmental. And, as for picking apart what a pilot said … I would suspect that half of the posters on this site would be right embarrassed if some of their “never-intended-to-be-heard-outside-of-the-cockpit” comments ever made the light of day.

The prudent thing to do here is 1) to pray for those injured or killed and pray for their families; and 2) keep our collective critical comments to ourselves until we learn at least some of the facts that were behind the decisions that were made.
________
AirRabbit

[vapilot2004]

'We had no fatalities on the plane, so that keeps our record intact'

I would be willing to bet real money that this quote, if true at all, was made before the deaths on the ground were made public.
It would have been callous and just plain stupid to make such a comment otherwise.

but the Bigger issue is why did the NLG of an 18 month old A/C collapse on the landing roll.

I would say because the landing roll included unapproved surfaces (antennas, light poles, soft grass, ruts, gopher holes - 1 Steel Wall - you get the Idea ?) They went Off the runway Dub !

Latest news I have on the incident has several PAX reporting a runway covered deep in snow - one reported saying "I could not tell the difference between the runway and the grass" This shows contamination beyond what local airport officials are admitting.