Final NTSB Report On The 2005 Southwest Accident At Midway



In the final report on the Dec 8, 2005 Southwest Airlines accident at Midway Airport the National Transport Safety Board faulted both the pilots and the airline. The plane was unable to stop before reaching the end of the runway. It continued past the end of the runway, and past the airport property, ramming a car and crushing a 6 year-old boy in a car.



When the accident took place, I sent out a special newsletter stating the following: "Even though it doesn't have long runways, and doesn't have overruns, jets have operated safely out of Midway for years. What went wrong? The plane landed with a 13 knot tailwind. In all my years of flying, I never landed with half that much tailwind. Is it possible the pilot was not informed of the tailwind? I have a hard time believing any pilot would land - knowingly - on a slippery runway with ANY tailwind. It will be interesting to find out why."



According to the NTSB report, Southwest Airlines' policy requires pilots not to land when there is a tail wind of over 5 knots. In testimony during the investigation, the pilots claimed they did not know of the policy.



In addition, the Board found the airline had not trained the pilots to correctly calculate how long a runway is required in order to stop when the runway is covered with snow.



I find that difficult to believe neither pilot was aware of the tailwind limitation. Aware of the limitation or not, I cannot understand why - instead of diverting to another airport - they attempted to land under the existing conditions.



You can read an article on the report at this link.



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Airline Accidents Reduced 65 Percent In Last Ten Years



You may want to read an article by Matthew L. Wald about the impressive increase in airline safety in the past ten years.



His article cites a White House commission during the Clinton administration that demanded the airline industry and the FAA reduce the rate of fatal accidents by 80 percent over ten years. Now, at the end of that ten year period, we see the industry and FAA almost met the goal with a 65 percent reduction in fatal accidents.



The improvement is the result of - not one thing - but a series of small changes, according to John Cox, a safety representative for the Air Line Pilots Association. Many of those small things were minor problems observed in everyday operations, he said. Small things that could cause an accident were scrutinized and eliminated before they caused an accident. For example, all U.S. airliners now have enhanced ground proximity warning systems which use the Global Positioning System to compare the plane's position against a database of mountains and buildings, and warn pilots of danger before a collision can occur.



To read the article, click here.

 

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Individual disks are $65 each.
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If you need them right away, you can download "Take Me Along" in MP3 (audio) or MP4 (video)





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