Posted on 01/12/2014 11:20:27 PM PST by zipper
"...scheduled to fly to Dallas with a stop in Branson, Missouri (BKG) but instead, the aircraft touched down at Taney County Airport (PLK), 8.6 miles away from its intermediate stop"
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
“Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash” comes to mind, but I’m sure he’ll be happy living off his military pension, even with the COLA reductions.
Once you accept a visual clearance you're on your own, they no longer have responsibility for your separation from other aircraft, let alone making sure you land in exactly the right place.
One good question to start with is, what percentage of approaches by SW pilots are "visual approaches"? It could be significant, if it's a high number and it's higher than the industry average.
The correct answer to that question is: tick, tick, tick....
Very true. I’ve ridden their jumpseat. Frankly those of us fully vested in the safety systems everywhere in the rest of the airline industry wonder how SWA has put off a catastrophic event for this long. “Threat and error management” and formal SMS systems tell us that unless SWA changes their cockpit culture it is only a matter of time until it is changed for them. If it is changed for them, heads will roll at the FAA certificate management office that oversees SWA as well. The NTSB will finally get the attention of the public, and only then the media will ask, “what the heck is going on at Southwest?” Something pilots at other carriers having been asking for quite a while.
Just to threadjack for a moment, but are you applying to any Federal civil service jobs? Quite a bit out there right now, particularly for MBAs who know what Lean, Six Sigma and Agile are. Major preference for veterans in hiring as well ... agencies are competing with each other to hire the most vets.
And, IMHO, it’s in the nations best interest to have Conservatives in Federal service ...
Branson airport runways are 32/14, PTK runways are 30/12. Pretty close. Article did not say which runway the aircraft was landing on but passengers afterwards stated the aircraft almost went off a cliff. The ground does slope down off the departure end of runway 30 so perhaps the pilot was cleared for a visual to Branson runway 32 but flew and landed on runway 30 at PTK. Still, looks like two pilots are going to be looking for new jobs.
“Actually US-born Asians with US-FAA airline transport pilot ratings have to go work in the middle east because they hardly get decent pilot jobs in U.S. airlines even if they were USAF graduates.”
Why? That makes no sense. Is it discrimination or something else?
Also,why the Middle East?
.
A couple of years ago I witnessed an SWA jet do a visual downwind to a left base to land at an airport in Florida — Tampa, I think — with a large, fast-moving cell directly over the airport. They were in the clear on downwind so could see the cell, but they flew the left ‘visual’ into the virga that completely obscured the field, with lightning coming out of the bottom less than a mile away.
They reported wind shear of +/- 20 knots on final.
I’ll never forget seeing that — they’re an accident waiting to happen.
I don't believe US-born Asians are singled out -- not one bit.
I said virga, but technically it was probably heavy rain, since it didn’t dissipate completely before reaching the ground.
The Boeing 737 took off around 3 p.m. Monday from M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport in Taney County. Southwest spokeswoman Michelle Agnew says the jet will travel to Tulsa, Okla., for fueling, then return to service.
Taney County Airport info:
http://www.fltplan.com/AirportInformation/KPLK.htm
I guess it's a good thing there wasn't another plane landing or taking off on that runway as this wayward plane came barging in.
The same questions we’re all asking.
I think they were probably on a visual approach (see my post #62), and they probably were cleared to land (at the other airport), but the basic underlying answer is, a lack of professionalism.
The track shows a direct flight to the smaller airport. If he was aiming for Branson and expecting a right base for runway 32, then I would expect his track to be a little South of the expected track on FlightAware.
The larger map shows the opposite, just like his GPS was programmed for the wrong airport...:^)
Yep, this was a NG model, with a much more descriptive instrumentation display available for the pilot to know positioning/approach details than the old traditional round-dial nav-instruments.
...(assuming of course...you make use of it).
Situational Awareness, Cockpit Resource Management(CRM), Sterile Cockpit Rules...lot's of stuff they'll be looking at on this one.
Kind of strange though that(in addition to the flight crew)they'd also suspend the poor sap in the jump-seat, believe he was just a dispatcher or something(fuel planner/WX)...I mean...not like he was a check airman.
Human error is one thing, with that drop off at the end of the runway...this could have ended up very bad.
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