NTSB says pilots used flawed technique to land plane
CHICAGO - Pilots of a Southwest Airlines jet that skidded off a runway at Midway International Airport relied on a flawed landing technique that federal aviation authorities should ban, investigators said Friday.
The Dec. 8 accident killed a 6-year-old boy inside a car crushed by the plane when it skidded off a snowy 6,500-foot runway, crashed through a fence at the Chicago airport and plowed into the street.
The National Transportation Safety Board Friday said the pilots should not have factored the plane's thrust reversers - which help slow the plane - when they calculated how long it would take the plane to stop.
The airplane touched down with about 4,500 feet of runway remaining, but snowy conditions and other factors meant the plane needed about 5,300 feet of runway to stop, the NTSB said in a preliminary report last month.
According to flight recorder data, the thrust reversers did not deploy until
18 seconds after landing, Friday's report said.
The NTSB is trying to determine what steps the pilots could have taken to avoid the accident, said agency spokesman Keith Holloway. Friday's report recommends that the Federal Aviation Administration prohibit planes from using thrust reversers in such landings.
The NTSB has previously said the jet's actual stopping distance was about 5,000 feet. It said a tail wind contributed to the accident because it caused the plane to land faster than normal.
Southwest is based in Dallas.
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