MrDK

IMO the name of the airline matters little if a very rare event, whether that be SWA or DAL.
If it happens again tomorrow it likely will be another big and highly regarded airline.
Besides anything that happened 20 or 30 years ago is hardly relevant anymore.

I think there are only two possibilities here:
1. Equipment (navigation) failure
2. Pilot error

The very plane is back in service and the pilots are not, so take a guess.

80ktsClamp

I absolutely hate the term "pilot error." Yes, it covers the overall obvious cause of what happened, but that is painting a very complex picture with a single color.

The fact is that they took a modern glass cockpit aircraft with all sorts of distance and altitude raw displays plus digital moving map lateral and vertical displays....and they succeeded in landing at an airport 6 miles short of their intended destination.

No crap it was pilot error... how did they manage to make that error?

MrDK

I doubt you can blame the company and its training and since equipment failure by proxy (the ship is back in service) has been ruled out, I'd guess that what was between two pairs of ears in row zero might e a clue.

Larry in TN

There have been three recent wrong-airport landings; SWA, Atlas, and the US Air Force (C-17). Of the three, the USAF is the only one that has had multiple wrong-airport events.

vilcas

You can go ahead and scratch the c-17 off the list they just flew over from Italy and conducted inflight refueling.

captjns

Airlines, through their training programs (which are continuing to evolve) provide their crews with the necessary tools to safely conduct transport of aircraft, passengers, crew, and cargo from point "A" to point "B". At the end of the day, isn't up to the crew to properly utilize those tools provided them?

rickair7777

I wouldn't scratch them off the list. Fatigue might have been a factor, but it's not an excuse. The military does accept more risk in flight ops than the airlines.

KC10 FATboy

Not true. Atlas did it twice.

John Carr

What was Atlas's other one?

grnclvrs

Looks like the days of getting the actual J/S are numbered.


NTSB: Third person in cockpit could have prompted errant flight | TheHill



NTSB: Third person in cockpit could have prompted errant flight
By Keith Laing

The pilots of a Southwest Airlines flight that landed at the wrong airport might have been distracted by a third person who was with them in the plane's cockpit, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said this week.

Hersman said during an interview on CNN that aired on Thursday evening that her agency was investigating the possibility that the pilots of Southwest's flight from Chicago's Midway Airport that landed erroneously at a small airport in Missouri were discussing something unrelated to the flight they were operating, which was supposed to be destined for Branson, Mo.


"We look at all of the factors involved in our investigations, and I think when we talk about two people in the cockpit, three people in the cockpit; very often, we find that another pair of eyes can be helpful," Hersman said. "But in some situations, people may be talking about things that are no pertinent. We need to really understand what happens in any environment. But generally it's about people working together, having good discipline, having good procedures and knowing what their assigned roles and duties are."

Hersman said the NTSB was also considering the possibility that the errant landing was the result of a miscommunication between air traffic controllers and Southwest's pilots.

"We want to make sure those pilots and air traffic controllers are communicating with each other and that things are well understood," she said. "We want to understand how technology can aid pilots in the cockpit and make sure that mistakes like this don't happen."

Southwest has announced that the pilots of its errant flight have been suspended during the investigations.

The airline offered free flight credits to the passengers who were traveling on the airplane.


Read more: NTSB: Third person in cockpit could have prompted errant flight | TheHill
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