Southwest lands at wrong airport?

jhugz said:
Let me ask you this, if the airplane went off the runway and killed 18 people, should the crew be fired?

Does it make sense to punish the action or the outcome?
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Dodged it again @Seggy . I still don't see answers to the questions. I'll just keep quoting them until I do.
 
Do you think that it would help to reduce mishaps of landing at the wrong airport if airlines started to use scenario-based training dealing with that?
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Personally, I would say it's simply not feasible to train for every possible scenario the airline crew may encounter. We would never get out of the box. We're already shoving 10lbs of training into a 5lb bag every time I go to recurrent. We already use scenario based training in recurrent on so many more important problems and issues.

Rule #1: As long as humans are involved mistakes will occasionally be made. Rule #2: even Safety and backup devices are designed and built by humans so see rule #1. You simply can't regulate mistakes out of the human element. It's that elusive element in the equation.

In the grand scheme of things, the percentage of aircraft landing at the wrong airport, giving the thousands that takeoff and land every single day all over the world is so small it probably doesn't even registry on any aviation graph. The media, as usual, due to a slow news day or whatever, will completely blow this waaaay out of proportion with sensationalized reporting, Johnny "Monday morning" experts, and they're desire to judge, condemn and execute anyone in their line of fire before the end of the news day. It's simply the world we live in.

I don't have all the answers but I do have a few personal opinions on why incidences like these are happening.....but I think I'll keep those to myself (at least off public forums). Maybe over a beer sometime....
 
This CNN article is quite possibly the best aviation article I have ever read, ever.

Some note worthy quotes:

While waiting, Schieffer and the other passengers ate peanuts provided by flight attendants. Southwest offered them a $200 travel voucher, he said.
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"You back the approach (to a runway) up (consulting) all the instrumentation and validation that you have available to you," Weiss said.
That includes scanning the horizon, looking up and down, talking to air traffic controllers, reading instruments and communicating frequently with a co-pilot.
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Weiss agreed that dumping fuel would be essential and said that a pilot would need significant physical strength help power the plane off the runway in ample time.
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If pilots were only doing a visual landing, they might not have noticed the difference in numbers in a navigation tool.
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Screaming_Emu said:
I would fully expect to be fired as well, but I think if I was on the other side of the table I'd think twice about it.

I'm a strong believer in second chances on stuff like this. Obviously if people were hurt, or an expensive amount of damage is done, its different.

But I'd look at the circumstances, look at the history of both pilots. If this is the first screw up of this magnitude I'd probably favor retraining. People screw up, it happens. But I guarantee you that those two will be more careful from now on. If they aren't, THEN throw the book at them.
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I think I agree with most or all of that, I do want to see what the guy I quoted says too. Definitely learning experience for all of us here and a reminder to not get complacent.
 
Have to agree with @jhugz on this one.

Of course mistakes happen, but this one is pretty bad. I expect it from student pilots but two experienced crew members? They really are lucky their total lack of SA didn't kill anyone.

@Seggy just imagine if was your family on that plane? Knowing what you know and how big of a brain fart it was would you still feel the same way?
 
I dealt with a crew that landed at a wrong airport. Yes, they made a mistake, but there were a ton of factors that led to that mistake. I know that firing the crew does nothing to solve the problem. All it does is it creates fear, an unwillingness to report mistakes, and a horrific safety culture. You guys need to see that.
 
ROFL at the "expert".

Reporter: So will the plane accelerate faster by holding the brakes and revving up the engines?
Expert: The plane won't accelerate any faster...the speeds called v1 and vR will still be the same for the plane to take off...it'll just GET to that speed faster than it would with a normal takeoff.

Where do they find these geniuses?
 
Seggy said:
I know that firing the crew does nothing to solve the problem. All it does is it creates fear, an unwillingness to report mistakes, and a horrific safety culture.
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Yup.

If someone has a track record of screwing up, absolutely they aren't learning and should be canned. But if this is the first time, and they have a pretty solid record in the past, I guarantee you they won't do this again.
 
ChasenSFO said:
ROFL at the "expert".

Reporter: So will the plane accelerate faster by holding the brakes and revving up the engines?
Expert: The plane won't accelerate any faster...the speeds called v1 and vR will still be the same for the plane to take off...it'll just GET to that speed faster than it would with a normal takeoff.

Where do they find these geniuses?
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I muted it as soon as they started talking.
 
So how much mixing of SWA and AirTran crews is happening to date? (hey! where did that pot-stirring smiley go?!)
 
Screaming_Emu said:
I muted it as soon as they started talking.
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"Well this is a flight across the country from Chicago".

"The approach controller cleared them to do a visual approach and land, and then would have told them after their VFR landing to call the Branson control tower for taxi instructions after landing. And it was dark so you couldn't see the runway numbers and would have no indication the runway is numbered differently..."

You're missing out.
 
Why does this keep happening? Because the airlines don't fire the crew when it does and it's treated like a non-event.
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I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. This type of incident is treated very seriously by all involved and is certainly not treated like a non event. Not sure why you think it's glossed over without any consequences.

I'm a big advocate on discovering the root problem and correcting that problem to prevent future occurrences. Simply firing the crew does nothing except promote fear and animosity between employee and employer. Doesn't really address the root problem and promote open, solution finding dialog between all the parties involved. I hope that firing the crew is a last resort after all other avenues have been exhausted.
 
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