"Southwest 4069 low altitude alert," a controller is heard saying in an air traffic control recording by LiveATC.net. "You good out there?" The pilots' response is not audible. MORE: abc7.com/post/faa-investigati...
The reason there were no alarms at that point is because they were configured for landing( gear and flaps down). If they would have gotten much lower possibly a "too low terrain" alert. In clear weather like that, could have backed up their visual apprach with an instrument approach( if avail)for the landing runway.
Well usually you don't configure the aircraft for landing until fairly established on your track and glide slope. There won't be oral warnings if the plane is expecting you to land. Having alarms blaring at pilots while they are in a critical phase of flight on the regular wouldn't be ideal. This sounds like it falls entirely in the pile of pilot error.
In the past, often the ground proximity warnings sounded too late to prevent a crash ( some as little as 12 seconds) Happened usually when approaching a mountain.
They were in landing mode and didn't have ILS on. ILS would tell you if you got below the glideslope. But they were flying a non-precision approach in VFR conditions where it is assumed the pilot will be paying attention to their altitude. And there is nothing wrong with flying a VFR approach in these conditions, which are dusk, not night, as so many people have commented. Even if it was fully dark, it would still be perfectly acceptable to fly a VFR approach in these conditions. The problem is that the pilots clearly did not do their job. There are three different ways to determine your altitude. Pressure altimeter, radio altimeter and GPS so having a faulty instrument would not absolve them from their responsibility. A good pilot will cross reference the information they are getting and notice a faulty instrument pretty quickly in most situations.
You are WRONG, the plane was on a manual approach 500 feet below a minimum altitude of 2000 feet that triggered the tower to call for a mandatory go around for safety sake- Boy I hate POOR reporting
Ahh im a pilot and this isnt a big deal, i know other pilots who are drunk literally every flight and banging flight attendants is mandatory, live a little this flight was fine, so go get your license and tell me about how much clam you get 🐟
This is strange because there is a fixed approach to land. The pilots, and autopilot, if used, should have known 3-10 miles out whether they were on the correct glide path. What happened?😮
@@cup_and_cone Why? I just looked at the approach plate and they were way off and missed many decanting several check points. The commentator is wrong about flying into a "black hole " this is never the case when landing a commercial jet aircraft.
Error in programming the flight management computer. It happens. But pilots usually notice sooner when it happens. These pilots had HUA syndrome. I would bet dollars to doughnuts the FAA finds a sterile cockpit rule violation here. Regardless, they probably need about a 3 month suspension so they can retake CRM. Edit: they were probably flying VFR so the computer isn't going to tell them they screwed up. Flying a VFR approach in these conditions is fine. They were cleared by the tower (TRACON) for a VFR approach. The problem comes when you don't pay attention during that VFR approach. VFR does not mean 'ignore your instruments' and a good pilot is always flying IFR even when flying VFR. No harm in tuning into ILS for backup. You never know when a sudden microburst will pop up over a Plains state in summer. Also, if you can fly a VFR approach with ILS on and it never tells you that you've deviated from the path then you know you actually know what you're doing when flying a visual approach.
Not mitigating anything that happened, but that “expert” is an idiot. They did not “blow through” an assigned altitude. They were cleared for a visual approach, which completely allows them to descend to whatever altitude they wish to maintain the visual approach. They were dangerously below what would have been the normal glide path for the RNAV approach, that is why the controller first gave them the alert then asked if they were ok. Proper phraseology IF they were on an instrument approach would be “low altitude alert…. Minimum safe altitude in that segment is…”. The key though is they stated they had the field in sight and were cleared for a visual. What they did wasn’t very smart, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. But for clarification we don’t know yet whether or not the controller’s call saved them. They would have gotten first a 1000ft radar call from the aircraft, and since they were so far from the airport they would have received a Gpws (ground proximity warning) about the same time.
They must be blind getting that low on a visual approach. Also, VFR doesn't mean you ignore your instruments and they have three different methods available to determine their altitude. Four if you count the Mark 1 Eyeball. It wasn't dark as so many seem to have commented. Sufficient light to look at the houses below you and realize something is wrong. There is definitely no excuse and both pilots should be suspended and fined, along with retaking CRM. I would say fire them but if we started doing that, there would be no airline flights.
@@Lurch-Bot have you flown much at night over sparsely populated areas? Talk to any carrier qualified naval aviator and they will tell you that judging altitude over the water at night is impossible, land can be almost as challenging. But I don’t discount the clues that were in the cockpit. Their primary MFD. would show their radar altitude continually from 2500ft AGL and they would have got an aural 1000ft call. No doubt there were plenty of clues. What I wrote about was more the legal aspect of the situation. What the FAR’s say, and the likely outcome of the situation.
If you listen to the voice recorder that is on other videos, the pilot sounds like he's half asleep. And when the tower wakes them up, he doesn't acknowledge that he did anything wrong, he just calmly says, yeah, we'll go around and try again. Thankfully we ATC guys on the ball that night.
@@respectdawildo_danjones508 Correct, I believe it was ATC voice tapes, I meant to say voice recordings and not voice recorder, I didn't mean to imply that it was the airplane voice recorder. My bad
Um, stop trying to make excuses as to why that pilot was flying so low like it was a prairie. It was like a black hole like he couldn’t see lights that’s a bunch of bullshit. He’s got a bunch of instruments in front of him that tells him he’s too low was he? I don’t know drunk? doing drugs what?
pilots heavily rely on auto pilot and other systems, if they set the altitude wrong, or if the system malfunctioned, it's possible they thought it would stop descending at a set altitude but... did not. Doesn't take too much time for a plane to get dangerously low if it just keeps going down... should be interesting to see what the investigation finds. I think it's a coin flip whether pilot error or system error given the piss poor quality of the planes these days.
News orgs jumping on board to report every minor thing since it got everyone's attention. Thousands of commercial flights with millions of people taking off and landing every single day yet 0 deaths. Go ahead and jump on board with the hysteria with everyone else and it will cause flight prices to go down so I can can fly cheaper and take more trips now. YAY!!!
The explanation given by the “expert” doesn’t make sense and he even contradicts himself. “they were descending over the prairie, so there was no reference points, no lights essentially a black hole.” The video shows that’s not t the case.
Other posters have pointed out that they were likely lined up for a highway that runs right along their path and thought it was the runway. Still no excuse whatsoever for that kind of mistake from 2 "professional" pilots.
That's why we always leave our exterior lights on at night - so the Southwest pilots can go, "Oh...wait......I can see it clearly and that's a house in a subdivision, not a runway."
That's true. Duh, I didn't think of that. Why, didn't I? Senior moment for sure, lol. My mother always said, growing old is not for the weak. She knew what she was talking about! Unlike me, apparently. 🙄🤐🤔 Off topic? Let's all come together, and stop giving politicians the power over us. They're showing us who, and what they are. Corrupt, and not for the people's best interest. Are we done giving them all they take, yet? Just wondering. They need a much bigger lesson in humility, than I do. 🙏😔👼
Unless the pilot mistook the houselights for runway lights! In our somewhat small city, the pilot of a Dreamliner cargo plane (bigger/fatter than the passenger Dreamliner) mistook our small-plane airport-with shorter runways-for the military base he was supposed to land at ~7 miles beyond. The plane stopped just a few feet from the end of the runway and a large warehouse. (In his defense, it was at night & he had never flown that route before.) They had to fly in their most expert, experienced pilot to try to get it airborne with the short runway available. Hundreds of us showed up to watch if the pilot could pull it off. He did, again, with a few feet to spare. What a spectacle it was. At least no innocent lives were in danger as has been with the last few debacles.
Neighbor who's a retired pilot told me a few years ago that the pilots who are currently flying commercial airlines have limited flight hours and are frighteningly inexperienced. Here's an example.
Agree. My father was a senior pilot for KLM after WWII. Flying then was completely different. When my dad would land the plane, the touch-down was so gentle you’d barely know it. Landings these days practically break your teeth. Sigh.
What are you, a psychic? How do you know how many hours of flying time the pilots have under their belt? Airline pilots require a minimum of 1,500 just to get the job in the first place.
When you listen to the ATC the pilot sounds sleepy before the incident. I'd bet fatigue and confirmation bias made them think a highway was their original assigned runway 13
Uhh - this guy says, "So they were descending over the prairie so there was no lights....." yada yada yada. It's a commercial jetliner. They descend over prairies, and oceans, and moutains, and all sorts of topography (at night) all the time. What - this is so rarely attempted that, of course, these passengers should have known they were risking their lives?? This is routine beyond description. This guy's tone is like, "Gosh, landing a jetliner at night over a prairie - even with modern avionics - is pretty tricky." No, it isn't - if the pilots are awake and have situational awareness and a clean cockpit environment (no idle chatter and a focus on what they're supposed to be doing). What the hell would have happened if the tower hadn't helped them to realize that they were at 525-foot, descending, and nine miles from an airport??? Everybody on that plane must have been tithing 10-percent or something......geez.
@@Lurch-Bot Yeah - as I recall those guys had a light bulb out and got so concerned with whether or not it was a gear down or just a bad bulb they flew directly into the Everglades. This does feel like some similar kind of weird distraction.
The problem is they are too relaxed assuming it's routine when obviously no landing should be assumed to be "routine." What would have happened without the tower's warning, guy? That is the question.
What's this got to do with the incident? You're comparing: a common practice that idiots on a beach do when a plane has a planned, controlled landing To: a plane nearly crashing into the ground and killing all passengers I don't understand how these are comparable or related.
exactly, humans have become like sandpaper to me. nothing happened to these people at 500+ feet yet i bet they all have a lawyer on speed dial. 500+ feet is not "crashing into the ground and killing thousands of people".
2 things happening here. 1. We need to know how this happened and prevent it. 2. Whoever built the low altitude warning system that the flight controllers use need a bonus and a huge thanks from all the people on-board.
This has 100% to do with our dependence on computers. When I was still an active pilot, we actually flew the plane. The whole way. Two humans, awake, hands on the controls, eyes on the instruments, providing continuous control of the machine.
They were hand flying a visual approach, not an ILS (Runway 13 doesn’t have an ILS). They lined up for Old Oklahoma 4 rather than runway 13. At night an airport looks like a big black hole in a city, and so does the area where they started the go around.
They were on VFR. The flight following and the aircraft still monitor and send feedback. Nobody was ever in danger. A mistake was made yes. Engineering and focused crews remedied the situation. STOP SCARING PEOPLE!
This happened with a military plane flying over my house about 6 months ago. I was inside my house and knew I was hearing a plane way to loud and ran out back. I looked up and yelled HOLY SH** as I thought it was going to crash and could see the entire underbelly of this huge plane. I can still hear the sound of the whistling noise of the engine in my head to this day as this was one of the scariest moments I’ve seen. I literally waited in fear to see an explosion but I guess it made it back safely as nothing was reported the next day. The base is about an 10 minute “drive” away. I was happy my neighbors were outside to witness this too as they also thought it was going to crash.
@@matttaylor817 from 2002-2020 the skies over the USA had been fairly quiet with minimal commercial flight issues even with thousands of flights daily. From 2020-2024 been many more issues reported especially over the last 2 years since some new hiring measure have been put in place inside the USA.
@@robthefarmer007Diversity and equity quotas 🤨 I remember the good ole days when you were hired or promoted based on your abilities AKA a meritocracy and not based on anything else .When it comes to the safety of our skies or anything else like that color blindness should be the rule not the overall policy despite whatever else .
That’s odd. Every time I have flown Southwest, they land planes faster than any other airline I’ve been on. I asked a friend of ours who was a Southwest pilot, and he said that’s just what’s in their flight manual.
Very strange incident. Were the altimeter alarms off or were they not working? If the 737 was able to pull back up, this was not a plane issue, but an instrument issue plus a lack of redundancy. Are pilots getting too used to "autopilot" modes and hence not sufficiently attentive?
The problem wasn't instrumentation, it was that they were flying a visual approach without any. If anything, their unwillingness to use "autopilot" modes contributed greatly to this near-disaster.
@@JamesDavidWalley He said he had field in site...he thought a hwy was the runway. .Someone else mentioned old hwy 4 is likely what he had to have thought was the runway.
Their reluctance to move on from the 737 family, their poor handling of delays and cancellations almost two years ago or so, apparently some faulty maintenance standards. Not the same airline they used to be.
there’s many: crosshairs on the flight director, PAPI lights on the runway, etc I’d imagine if the pilots started hearing “50, 40…” and they hadn’t even got to the start of the runway they’d slam the throttles to max thrust lol
The problem is the fact they're scraping the bottom of the barrel because nobody with a brain wants to rack up $300k in debt for a $30k per year job. All they get are idiots and wannabes, just like in law enforcement. Being an airline pilot is just as risky and all the sleep deprivation and constant exposure to elevated radiation levels will shorten your life by 10-20 years. This is why there are no old, bold pilots - they all got worked to death. These days, intelligent, capable people wanting an aviation career become technicians or air traffic controllers. School costs less and you're making more money right out of the gate. I knew some techs with 20 years experience who were making almost as much as a senior pilot with a major airline.
That would be crazy loud ! Years ago add our high desert rural ranch some military pilots in a large airliner sized transport a 4 engine probably a 747 military cargo plane we're flying only 100 ft above a ridge of hills that was only two or 300 ft above our house We were working in the yard gardening and felt a rumbling noise and we're like what an Earth are we hearing and into view comes This enormous 150 ft wingspan 200 ft long 4 engine plane maybe a eighth mile distance and only what seemed like inches above the ridge Top and he was going slightly above stall speed my wife and I stood there with her mouth open like what on Earth and what else could you do ? Another time an F 14 or 16 jet flew through a valley nearby below the ridgetop going about 700 miles an hour I heard him coming turn my head and he went past me so fast I could barely see him the man I was speaking with was looking towards the direction the jet came from and he never even saw him. This is in the Anza Garner Valley area of Riverside County back in the mid-90s I guess you could say the military love to fool around in our mountains and hills cuz it looked to them like nobody lives there but it was like being an air show impromptu lol. Great memories actually lol
A few years ago I was working on my shop roof and geard this rumbling and then the sound became almost deafening as a C5 super galaxy transport plane came skimming over the tree tops literally only 200 ft over my head above the neighborhood which like your location is rural .I practically crapped myself and expected an imminent impact . My guess is that they were either screwing around or practicing radar evasion tactics but in my opinion it was pretty reckless considering the fact that although it's not densely populated we still have several thousand people spread throughout our area with many of the homes within the area hidden by trees . Thought about calling the FAA but based on a previous experience I had several years prior when I saw another C5 doing exactly the same thing near the foothills of Mt Rainier and notifying them ,I knew it would go nowhere .They couldn't give two shits less about whatever we citizens think so I knew it was pointless to even bother .
@@royalspin Right on Brother same story no doubt. Give high hormone 20 something year old guys weapons, ammo, high $$$ equipment, a modest bit of training and little to no supervision - what else should we expect ? Sometimes they're saying "Hello" to the wife or girlfriend !
I remember those days. My parents had their shower enclosure cracked by the sound of the jets flying overhead from El Toro Air Base in Orange Co when they broke the sound barrier once or twice. Seriously.
Yeah that's a bit low. Nine miles off the threshold on a direct approach, you should still be at least 2100' AGL. I guess no one thought to look at the VASI lights.
I know. A single glance would have told them they were too low. I guess they're flying approaches with their heads up their asses these days. This is what happens with over-reliance on technology. Both pilots should get a suspension and retraining or maybe just find a new career. They aren't entitled to be airline pilots just because they were dumb enough to rack up $300k in loans to get there. In fact, these days, intelligent people just go to A&P school if they want an aviation career. We are selecting for stupid pilots because the airlines no longer want to take the responsibility for training pilots.
The public is finally recording and reporting the police. Did you here about the town that just fired the police chief and suspended the entire force? Dont give up yet.. America is fighting back
There were way more crashes and a lot less flights in the past. You can easily look that up and see that, despite these recent incidents, flying in an airliner is way more safe than ever.
They were flying a visual approach (not an instrument landing) at night and may have lined up on a road that they mistook for the runway. Good call by the tower.
Even then, it really only flies these days if you have some sort of equipment malfunction. There really is no excuse for spatial disorientation with modern avionics. If it happens, it should be a lifetime suspension from ATP privileges because it means they are incapable of using and trusting their instruments, even after $300k worth of training. The real problem is that competent, intelligent pilots won't touch ATP with a ten foot pole these days. It is not intelligent to rack up $300k in debt for a career that treats you like a slave and forces you to constantly take risks with peoples lives because they won't even let you get a proper night's sleep before flying...They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Same problem in law enforcement really, but it is because intelligent, ethical people aren't going to put their ass on the line for McDonalds pay. They should pay both cops and airline pilots $200k per year minimum. Then you'll get quality people.
My son lives in Yukon, Oklahoma and I at times stay with him and yes, some airliners do fly low into the Will Rogers World airport but not this low. I'm just glad when this plane came out the "Black Hole" nothing bad happened in that area. Perhaps the pilot (s) must have had a slight case of spatial disorientation but I know for a fact there is enough lights on the ground for an aircraft to determine their air to ground position.
1,000 feet 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes; general (b) Over congested areas - Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open-air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.
Since when does a modern airplane need to be steered by sight in the dark? Shouldn't its GPS and nav systems be telling them when the airport was nearby and exactly where it and they were at all times? What were they doing trying to fly by hand?!
Again, not dark, dusk. Plenty of light to notice the cars and houses were way too big. Also, you can fly VFR at night. But thanks for lousing up the chat with another ignorant comment from a non-pilot.
Planes fly that low over my development all the time and I'm 6 mi out from CLE airport. Sometimes for how loud they are we look up thinking they're going to crash.
Facts: As of February 2024, there have been a total of 529 aviation accidents and incidents involving all 737 aircraft, which have resulted in a total of 5,779 fatalities and 234 hull losses. Boeing Whistleblowers: Two murdered and a third lives in terror.
Well, the airlines have all announced they were making diversity hires for their pilots. Skin color, gender and sexual orientation come before actual knowledge and skill. Yup, woke used to go broke now it may kill people?
It wasn't night, it was dusk, which is a massive difference. And, aside from that, you can fly VFR at night, especially when you have the world's largest christmas tree to direct you to the runway. Doesn't look like a lot of cloud cover and the clouds I see in the video would have been 10-20k feet up. The problem was these pilots clearly weren't flying VFR or IFR. More like NFR (no flight rules). The only time IFR is required is when meteorological conditions demand it. And, in that case, they would have been following the glidescope. Additionally, VFR doesn't mean you don't look at your instruments either.
@@Lurch-Bot Well of of course you would check airspeed and altimeter in VFR. Regardless this is a commercial flight with IDK say 200 souls on board, you better know you're goddam altitude!
This is the second low altitude issue with SW and 737 is the last few weeks, somethings up each blamed on 'pilot' 1st a rookie now flying over an unlit prairie - no one reads instruments anymore or ... ?
there is a notification when you miss the glideslope for approach , but im not sure if its audible or just instruments. This might have to been too far out for the localizer, im not sure,, They also have charts, so they knew there was no terrain nearby ( like mountains
What an idiotic comment, *you have no idea* how much experience these pilots have. The Tenerife disaster that killed 248 people was caused by KLM's chief instructor, who had 11,700 hours in the cockpit.
How long have these pilots been pilots? We deserve to know who the pilots are, and who’s flying these planes. We’re putting our lives into their hands, so how the hell did this happen?!!?
Well, thanks to Reagan era deregulation, the modern airline industry is a complete joke. I'm a certified commercial aircraft tech and even Elon Musk couldn't pay me enough to board a commercial flight these days. And I am very glad I don't work in the industry anymore. Post-9/11 it was bad enough but now it is just a nightmare. Wouldn't last long these days because I'd just straight up refuse to do anything that deviates from the manual.
Some questions to ask: was the terrain alert system on and working? Was the aircraft flying an ILS approach and was it working both at the airport and on the aircraft? Pilots are trained for night flying (instrument rating). Were they looking at the aircraft altitude and was the barometric pressure set properly? All I can say is give that controller a medal and a month off with pay. He clearly averted a massive disaster. Looking forward to the FAA investigation report.
I live just over ten miles from CVG, Cincinnati's airport. Planes come over my house lower than that multiple times a day, every day. And they have the flight approach right over subdivisions when there is rural area all over the nearby area. The FAA does a shit job, IMO, because if this was a problem in Oklahoma, why isn't it deemed a problem in Cincinnati?
Hi Andrei, this is not just about to hit the house. Come on 500 miles above it’s still a good altitude for them to be able to maneuver and not even being closed to honey homes last time my check unless it’s a skyscraper or regular home it’s not taller than 20 feet
how did this even happen? i've got some flight time and experience, single piston engine and haven't had to do any IFR yet, but i gotta imagine at night thats either IFR or IMC, HSI should have waypoint info, distance, heading, altitude, and i'd imagine the use of ILS. the way this story is presented its like they were flying a passenger jet at night as VFR!? i just don't see how this could happen other that either pilot error/negligence, or some sort of auto pilot disconnect error, other than some sort of other mechanical or digital freak accident.
The voice of the female reporter instantly screams "I'm reading this in a way that sensationalizes this story as much as possible and I know nothing about the subject."
Wow, do you have evidence that this, any or All Pilots involved in Air Incidents are DEI hired?? Or you just assume that All Minorities are Incompetent?! Racist Much?!😮
Perhaps they didn't have the benefit of a DEI class, sylvia--and that was the problem. What a bigoted b.s. comment. You could use a class or two yourself, sylvia.
But they'd have to go back to using paper charts and that's so 1950. Sorry, last thing I want is some Zoomer pilot who is surgically attached to their phone playing Minecraft while the plane goes down in flames because they decided today was a good time to quiet quit or do some malicious compliance.
Even if I am rookie pilot, flying in uncharted territory, I should know how radars and control systems work unless my both hands are occupied somewhere else. 🤪😜😂 this proved that this was safety issue for the people on board and on the ground.
The first time I ever went on an airliner I was going from Lubbock, Texas to Dallas Love Field in a Boeing 727. At one point we got so low I could read license plates on cars below. WE! WERE! LOW! That magnificent Boeing wing was opened up with max low speed devices. At one point the pilots gave it a WHOLE LOT of power and we stopped descending. We kinda stayed at the same altitude for a while. We even made a couple of turns. Finally they throttled back and we settled on the runway at Love. I had been in private planes several times (a college friend was a private pilot) but I had never been that close to the ground without either being on approach or climb out. It definitely got my attention.
White pilots are the majority when it comes to airplane crashes n mishaps in the U.S. Google it! Clear folks always thinking their gonna get a pass or pay someone off to get ahead!
Wow, do you have evidence that any or All Pilots involved in Air Incidents are DEI hired?! Or, do you just assume that All Minorities are Incompetent?! Racist Much?!😮
A string of incidents involving southwest is alarming, this incident, couple of weeks back in Hawaii with the plane descending rapidly towards the ocean and getting within 400 feet and back in March where a southwest flight deviated from the ils approach at KLGA and came within a couple hundred feet of hitting the tower. No excuse for this stuff to be happening nowadays with the advance in technology and safety protocols in place. Maybe time for a stand down and regroup to figure out what’s causing these issues before someone gets killed.
Another DEI pilot being controlled by a DEI atc. For those who do not know this means the pikots were not paying attention at all for minutes at a time and had the autopilot set up wrong
You're literally making shit up. About 2% of all pilots are black, so more than likely, these pilots were white and male and as a result, most accidents are caused by white males.
There are so many things wrong with that claim. Even a pilot inclined to have a drink with 48 hours would never show up at the airport visibly impaired, would never be able to get past the preflight planning before being questioned, and would have hours to sober up before landing. They have complete automation available, which they would use if they expected any issues with physical dexterity or losing focus.
That's nothing. I was in the Navy. I was on my first night FAM in VT-3 (stationed in Milton, Fla at North Whiting NAS). I was going to be flying out of Pensacola Intl. the next day, for my first commercial flight ever (as a passenger), but for now I was landing a T-34C Mentor as a pilot . . . at night . . . for the first time . . . I lined up on the runway . . . my instructor told me to go ahead and line up for final . . . I lined up . . . he told me to go ahead and line up . . . I did . . . he said, "what are you doing?!" . . . I said, "We're lined up sir" . . . He pointed out that we were lined up to land in the Cordova Mall parking lot . . . I was lined up on parking lot lights. Go ahead and check it on Google Maps . . . I was lining up on mall parking lot lights . . .
That’s not enough room. A typical landing speed for such an aircraft is ~150mph, which is 220 feet per second. That plane could have hit the ground in less than 2 seconds.
