NTSB - SWA Crash at KMDW

USAToday said:
After concluding they could land at 7:04 p.m., Oliver quoted from the 1980 film Airplane, a spoof of air-disaster movies. "Picked the wrong day to stop sniffin' glue," he said.
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At least they realized it was from a movie, and didn't write some big "glue sniffing expose!"
 
Do they "clean up" CVR transcripts before they release the scripts to the public- (I don't mean bleeping out the expletives), but the "Casual banter" they described, does that get removed or does that have an impact on the FAA's ruling style?
 
"The airline has since changed its policy and now requires pilots to calculate stopping distance based on the worst possible report of runway conditions."

Isn't this a basic private pilot thing? I can't believe this policy wasn't already in place. Hopefully other operations aren't this stupid.

Error on the side of safety only after you kill someone once.
 
Timbuff10 said:
"The airline has since changed its policy and now requires pilots to calculate stopping distance based on the worst possible report of runway conditions."

Isn't this a basic private pilot thing? I can't believe this policy wasn't already in place. Hopefully other operations aren't this stupid.

Error on the side of safety only after you kill someone once.
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SWA's safety record speaks for itself. No other airline has carried as many passengers as far without a passenger fatality.

My guess is this involves clarification and emphasis of policy with their flight crews. I wouldn't take the quote above at face value. For one thing the airline is not going to implicitly admit to the press that their crew violated any policy or safety rule.
 
flyover said:
SWA's safety record speaks for itself. No other airline has carried as many passengers as far without a passenger fatality.
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I'm going to disagree with that. The child was a passenger in the car, and technically falls within the realm of passenger.

Being facetious there, obviously, but if you kill someone, whether it be on the ground or in the plane, it doesn't matter: you've still killed someone. One should not go around praising "Well, we haven't killed anyone who has paid us money!"
 
Chris_Ford said:
someone. One should not go around praising "Well, we haven't killed anyone who has paid us money!"
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SWA should be very proud of their safety record. And it wasn't them that was bragging about it, it was me. I don't know how you can dismiss their safety record. No one else comes close.
 
I'm not indicting anyone here, but we've got to learn from these things.

Relaxing with "look at our safety record" is actually dangerous.

Accidents can happen anywhere for any reason and I feel you need to constantly self-evaluate instead of resting on laurels.

The MD-90's got a stellar safety record. Zero fatalities or serious injuries.

A little engine failure last month changed my perspective.

Do I:

(a) Relax. It's very rare and statistically speaking, shouldn't happen again in my career...

or

(b) Look at the situation, figure out what worked and what didn't, and try to re-engineer my findings?
 
flyover said:
SWA should be very proud of their safety record. And it wasn't them that was bragging about it, it was me. I don't know how you can dismiss their safety record. No one else comes close.
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There's always a first, though.
 
Doug Taylor said:
I'm not indicting anyone here, but we've got to learn from these things.

Relaxing with "look at our safety record" is actually dangerous.

Accidents can happen anywhere for any reason and I feel you need to constantly self-evaluate instead of resting on laurels.

The MD-90's got a stellar safety record. Zero fatalities or serious injuries.

A little engine failure last month changed my perspective.

Do I:

(a) Relax. It's very rare and statistically speaking, shouldn't happen again in my career...

or

(b) Look at the situation, figure out what worked and what didn't, and try to re-engineer my findings?
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Absolutely agree. And I would say if SWA had a habit of resting on their laurels they wouldn't have their current stellar safety record. The envy of any other carrier in the industry.

Have you been into MDW? If you can run the number of operations in and out of that tiny airport that SWA does and not have a runway excursion it is practically a miracle.
 
Okay, hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but let's look at it from what the crew was thinking. Other airlines were reporting the braking as "fair," so they ran the numbers for fair and determined they could land. The fact that it went from "fair" to "poor" between when they determined their landing numbers and when they landed is what got them in hot water. I don't know about everyone else, but I don't re-run the landing numbers every five minutes.

Here is what I think their mentality was: the passengers in the back expect to go to MDW, the connecting passengers expect to make their flight, and the passengers waiting expect this plane to be on time. The pressure is on to get that flight into MDW. Now, it's definately safer to divert somewhere else (possibly IND), but the desired outcome is a landing at MDW. So, once the braking reports improved, the pilots saw that their priority was at least possible. It's even possible that some of those crews REPORTING "fair" braking were actually getting a bit worse, but reported it as fair to keep from getting tagged by their company. Truth is, no one knows.

It's tragic that a life was lost, but crucifying the pilots for more or less following procedures is not going to bring that person back. The only thing we can do is learn from what happened and apply it down the road.
 
kellwolf said:
Now, it's definately safer to divert somewhere else (possibly IND), but the desired outcome is a landing at MDW.
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There is another airport in Chicago, but the name escapes me....
 
Conditions can change pretty fast. I recall once landing in YMX, braking was fine as we initially landed and slowed, but it had just started freezing rain. As we rolled out, it was pretty slick turning off the runway. During the taxi to our ramp it got so slick that I had it slowed down to under 5 kts, and even then it was starting to break loose as I made about a 15 degree turn.

Walked down the crew stairs when we got the ramp, got into the van and the driver had a heck of a time even pulling off the ramp.

Might have been better in a heavier airplane than the 727, but I have had MD11s break loose too, just not as badly!
 
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