Southwest Plane Plunged Within 400 Feet of Ocean Near Hawaii | Hacker News Reader

Southwest Plane Plunged Within 400 Feet of Ocean Near Hawaii

bloomberg.com

36 pointslxgr28 comments

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https://archive.ph/skako

> came within 400 feet of slamming into the ocean ...

> dropped at an abnormally high rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute ...

So at that rate of decent it was ~1/10t of a minute or 6 seconds before hitting the water. That's way too close.

why is this post flagged ?

“The National Transportation Safety Board isn’t aware of the Southwest incident, a spokesperson said. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association declined to comment.”

This is insane to me. It looks like Southwest was trying to keep this quiet. But this is an incident that all airlines could learn from.

As the story reports, this was basic pilot error; the FO initiated a descent and cut power back too far.

But absolutely all of us assumed it was another Boeing engineering problem…

Is this another in the string of 737 MAX issues? Or would other aircraft have experienced the same event under the same conditions?

Edit: Aplogies for asking about content that was obvious, but behind a paywall. Thanks to the archive link shared, it sounds like it was (inexperienced) human error.

It’s weather-related, not 737-related.

We'll see what the FAA finds. The United flight in 2022 was deemed to be weather-related, not this flight. It's still undergoing investigation.

Do you mean UAL1722 (December 2022)?

That was miscommunication between the pilots and a resulting incorrect flaps setting, not weather: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/0...

That was determined after an independent investigation by both the FAA and NTSB. This incident hasn't been investigated by anyone but Southwest Airlines.

Shouldn’t this be the NTSB’s job?

My apologies for asking the question when I could only read the first two paragraphs due to paywall. The archive link shared cleared up my concern, and makes it clear that it was human error during a weather-related re-approach. Thanks, though!

Where does it say it's weather related?

> The captain opted to put the “newer” first officer in command on the short flight to Lihue despite the forecasts, according to the memo. The less-experienced first officer “inadvertently” pushed forward on the control column, then cut the speed causing the airplane to descend. Soon after, a warning system sounded alarms the jet was getting too close to the surface and the captain ordered the first officer to increase thrust. The plane then “climbed aggressively” at 8,500 feet per minute, the memo said.

Article makes it clear it was human error.

My bad. The article makes that clear behind a paywall. I could only read the first two paragraphs before I asked the question. Luckily the archive link shared had the full text and I was able to read the full incident description. Thank you!

If it's Boeing, I ain't going!

Seriously, after seeing several Boeing engineers saying they wouldn't fly on a Boeing aircraft, and seeing how their management has handled their crises, I'm not flying Boeing. That company needs a major restructure and "come to Jesus" moment before I'll ever trust them again. So far, that isn't even on the horizon.

I've had similar thoughts, but how does that work for you in practice?

If you book a flight that says it's an airbus plane and then you show up and the airline had to sub in a boeing plane, do you just cancel your trip?

If you don't have the expensive tickets that allow same-day rebooking, I can't imagine any airline would humor an attempt to get a refund or to have them waive a rebooking fee.

Similarly if you're traveling for business and your company has paid for the ticket, some companies let you book your own travel and then get it reimbursed, but presumably you're needed at the destination so if the day of travel comes and the plane is an airbus and you "nope" out of there, you're going to have to hope that your work is okay with your explanation.

All of this is because "if it's boeing, I ain't going" can seem alarmist or reactionary since the FAA has so far declined to drop the hammer on them.

In practice, you can only (reasonably) minimize your odds of flying on Boeing. That means "no" to Southwest Airlines. It means "yes" to Frontier Airlines, whose entire fleet consists only of Airbus planes. Thank goodness where I'm located and often need to go to are well-served by Frontier Airlines!

BUT - many airlines operate a mixed fleet. Book on an Airbus. They rarely change planes, but if they do, say your prayers! Unless you have tickets easily allowing you to re-book, which most of us aren't purchasing.

That's a tough one. I care more about the airline than the airliner, and Frontier definitely is not near the top of my list.

It’s often possible to take a suboptimal route to avoid a Boeing. For example, if I fly Austin to San Francisco, it could well be a MAX, but if I go to SJC via LAX instead it is almost guaranteed not to be.

How much more dangerous is it to take two flights (and two different planes with varying ages and maintenance records, plus two landings and take offs), than to take one Boeing?

https://i.imgur.com/tyq5qOC.png

I'm all for backing the regulatory pressure that has allowed this constant improvement (consider that flights per year have increased while the trendlines in those graphs have decreased) but I'm going to need to see that accident number reach about 100x what it is right now before I care about it enough to personally switch flights. The commercial aerospace side of Boeing has over 10,000 engineers, several of them have probably said we didn't land on the moon too. The way their management has handled decline in their record is at least a fair point just not nearly bad enough yet for me to really care as often as articles about it get posted here or enough to switch flights yet.

Was just playing with some other NTSB statistics and noticed the graph range doesn't shrink to fit, here's the continued risk decline: https://i.imgur.com/gKomsVa.png

I am ok with older Boeing airplanes. While I am skeptical of the company's current safety program, and attention to detail, I think the older planes - with many C checks done - are safe to fly. Something happened with the 737 Max, clearly a management decision, that increased risk or perhaps inattention to detail.

My opinion is that the company was run by bean counters instead of engineers, and the stock market convinced the business people that changing the way they made airplanes, made sense.

Dreamliner? Impeccable safety record so far.

As I mentioned, older Boeing's. The Dreamliner been flying since 2011, that's an older Boeing for me, compared to the 737 Max which has only been flying commercially since 2016.

I see, true

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