Southwest TAKEOFF ON CLOSED RUNWAY | Vehicles Have to Run Away! 

METAR KPWM 250951Z 29005KT 10SM FEW100 16/14 A2972 RMK AO2 SLP063 T01610139= PWM 06/168 PWM RWY 11/29 CLSD EXC XNG AND TAX THU FRI MON TUE WED 0230-0945 2406200230-2407310945

Them not monitoring CTAF is almost as dangerous as taking off on the closed runway

"That's not what we're showing, but ok" boy, that's how you end up with the FAA holding a pair of scissors and asking to see you pilots license

"Did he just take off from a closed runway?" "Yes" AFP95 confirmed. Welcome to Steam Edition.

Swa: Well obviously the runway wasn’t closed if we took off from it.

"You risked people's lives" "Meh..that's not what we were showing."

Great job once again putting this all together Victor! It adds a LOT of clarity to the situation.

I work on this airfield. Unfortunately it is a regular occurrence at PWM to see airliners depart and arrive without a single CTAF call. Seeing landing lights approaching while you’re working on and near runways is very unsettling. We are diligent about making CTAF calls but not all professional pilots see it as necessary. This is very dangerous.

Brickyard 5760 was so surprised that they were just vanished.

If it was 5:45 when he took off then he should have takeoff clearance from tower. If it was before 5:45 the runway was closed. He knew what he was doing.

My home airport and I was listening on my ICOM. Southwest was not on CTAF, they were communicating on Boston Center 128.2, the frequency who gave them their IFR clearance and hold for release instructions. They did not communicate any ground movements on CTAF 120.9

"Magical!" Lmao

The pilot was awfully flip about taking off from a closed runway.

@VASAviation BTW, if you look at the previous 2 weeks flight tracking, this SWA flight number departed the 29 runway before the 0945 opening 3 other times.

Very lucky ops in the vehicle was paying attention.

3:51 Brickyard 3516 would be a nice radio host 😂

It was in the NOTAM. It was in the ATIS. He’s driving an aircraft full of passengers around an airport not communicating on CTAF. Technically legal but certainly not it prudent. Then, he takes off on 29. 1. He could have had a tragic collision at the intersection with 36 if the departing aircraft departed a few moments earlier. 2. He could have collided with the ops vehicle further down 29 if they hadn’t been alert and left the runway in time. That needs to be handled as a “possible pilot deviation”.

This is your daily dose of another close call

How ironic. 4805 is the same flight number as the KLM 747 in the Tenerife airport disaster.

For clarity for a few commenters who are confused: when an airport like this is "uncontrolled' that means there is not an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) actively managing the runways. The Southwest pilot communicated their intention to take off on runway 29 to "center" which is not responsible for verifying or controlling runways; Center controls the airspace and tells the pilot what altitude to go to, etc. The pilots had a responsibility to announce their ground movements and takeoff intentions to everyone on 120.9, and didn't. This is 100% pilot error, there was no ATC mistake. They also apparently took off before the scheduled opening of the runway, although the pilot claimed after the fact that they didn't, but even if *were* on time, they still had a responsibility to announce their intentions. Just because a runway is scheduled to be open does not mean it's automatically clear. There's also a crossing runway in active use! What if another pilot is taking off on the crossing runway? What if someone's trying to land?

The ops guy was very professional about clearing the runway.

Lots wrong with SWA. Never used CTAF even knowing supposedly about closed runway possibly with people on it and hopefully saw Brickyard moving around. Never confirmed time or runway status with Boston claiming to believe he had a whole 3 minute window since runway planned to reopen. The tower opened at 05:45 after SWA departed. Had the crew the believed the time was 05:48 then they should called the tower controlling airport. Busted.

Love the little service vehicle graphic bookin out of the way.

That pilot in 3516 is such a dork I love it lmao.

Aviation is a team sport. Keep your head on a swivel, and double check your radio frequencies. We make it safer by working together.

As a pilot who is meticulous in ensuring I do my job properly to protect myself, my employer, paying customers, and other users of the national airspace system, this event grinds my gears more than any other I can think of.

Republic pilot here who’s landed at PWM many times, a lot of construction at this airport, if the weather was poor, this was an absolute recipe for disaster

Ok folks, Southwest's number of at-fault pilot incidents is now unacceptable. As a 30 year airline pilot, I now don't want to fly Southwest. What on earth is going on there in operational management?

The captain claimed he took off right at 5:45 when the runway opened, however he didn’t communicate with the tower, which also opened at 5:45. If I was the departure controller I would’ve asked him “if you took off at 5:45 Why didn’t you talk to the tower?”

An IFR departure release is not takeoff clearance. Center does not issue takeoff clearances. You either get takeoff clearance from Tower, or you listen and talk on CTAF. I'm not a huge fan of the 1500-hour rule, because hundreds of hours of pattern work in a Cessna 172 is not especially relevant training for airline pilots, but one thing you do typically learn via this career path is the use of CTAF at untowered fields. Whereas the flood of military aviators fleeing for high-paying airline jobs ASAP (for example) may not have that experience.

Not convinced he ignored the radio calls and did what he wanted anyways based on the attitude he gave on the radio. Should be reported to FAA. What a moron.

Was this guy literally just monitoring Boston Center? The vehicle warned him, the TOWER warned him......I mean sheesh

The blame is on the SWA crew entirely for not adhering to ATIS as far as runway status goes. If you know that traffic is on a certain frequency while tower is closed, USE IT!

Captain Ron: Don’t worry. They’ll get out of the way. I learned that driving the Saratoga.”

How did the flight crew "miss" this? If the tower and runway both open at the same time (5:45), why are you talking to Boston but no one at Portland?

That SWA crew is a potential danger. They are incompetent and or liars.

As a former airport ops guy, runways remain closed until handed back to the controlling authority or changed on NOTAMs. ATC and pilots use the pavement but ops vehicles own it and can close and reopen at their discretion. Shame on the southwest pilot for putting his own ego ahead of the vehicles on the runway and his passengers.

Sounds like the pilot in the Southwest was quick on his feet with responding that it was just a clock issue. His clock is apparently 3 minutes faster than the airport. So either it was or he was trying to cover his ass. I believe, however, you have to wait for the tower controller to declare that the runway was open, which she did by announcing that arrivals and departures were on Rwy 29.

They weren’t talking to the tower, they knew exactly what time it was, they weren’t making CTAF calls, that’s a deliberate foul.

SWA sounds like a cowboy, hope he gets investigated

At both Portland and Bangor, my local airports, they are doing runway rehabilitation which means you have to be extra vigilant when the runway is closed/ which parts of it are closed and when. Not knowing that information or not communicating on the CTAF is disastrous. Close call.

Another class act example of Southworst airlines. Not monitoring CTAF and providing traffic calls, and the total lack of situational awareness of airport environment, is very troubling. Hey the other traffic is taking off 36 maybe we need to think about that. Followed by the lack of concern from the detached sounding pilot after he was made aware of the mistake makes this a must for investigation by the FAA.

Bad airmanship on Southwest’s part

I am not even doing these kind of things in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Southwest owns about 75% of responsibility with this one. They werent on the CTAF. They obviously listened to NOTAM/ATIS. KPWM should own some responsibility that the closure markers should be absolutely last thing off. Also: MAGICAL

SWA can’t stay out of the news. C’mon man

"That's not what we're showing, but ok" - JFC dude, your entitled attitude is gonna get people killed! School yourself on how to communicate when tower is closed.

I was waiting for the "possible pilot deviation, advise when ready to copy a phone number" ...did that happen later or not at all?

Was that Brickyard whispering? 😂

For the first time in forever, Portland in question is Portland, ME. Not Portland, OR.

So they never used the CTAF, departed a closed runway, then didn’t accept responsibility. If they knew they departed at :45, then they would have departed without talking to the tower, which is pretty much just as bad.

"That's not what we're showing" - that's not what I wrote down to comply with myself 😆

Republic has good crews, I fly with them as much as possible. 3516’s departure was by the book. Southwest didn’t bother to go get the book.

We MUST know how Brickyard 3516's magical climb turned out!

Just a hunch, but I'm thinking the crew made CTAF announcements on the incorrect frequency. This would account for the nocomms. As to using a time machine to account for the 3 minute difference between actual takeoff time and the end of the runway closure, that might become a career limiting event for the crew unless they have something *really* good to back it up.

Who let these VATSIM pilots start flying the real thing?

Including the ATIS and the previous Brickyard CTAF calls.... that was savage!!

Layman question: should the runway be marked or flagged as closed somehow while work is in progress?

Exactly why i dont fly SWA or United...too many problems with the workers.

Meh, the union will save their asses. Move along.

If I have information Romeo why wasn't a closed runway on that prerecorded announcement and why didn't Romeo tell me!?

ATIS says the CTAF ATIS says rwy closed SWA: "meh, ATIS says a lotta stuff"

Typical Southwest, nothing has changed always in a hurry. Beat schedule for extra pay.

That SWA picked a baaaaad flight number for this sort of thing.

The flight management computer can display GPS time.

Something tells me 3516 knew he'd be on VAS.

Cpt Leroy Jenkins going in on 28

What is going on with Southwest lately..

Babe wake up, weekly US close call just dropped

Not a pilot of a 737 but is there an "official" clock in that plane or is it that informal at that level to go by the pilots watch?

Surprised that the takeoff clearance wasn't cancelled. Then realized that there was no takeoff clearance ...

Not that it makes any difference but why didn't those who tried to warn them, get on the other frequency and try to warn them?

Fire this ignorant pilot..

SWA has an ASAP Program, therefore they will net get violated in the way a GA pilot would get violated. Was a mistake made yes. There could be many reasons how this happened. They had the incorrect CTAF freq in the radio and thought they were talking on CTAF. The FMC's could have had the incorrect time loaded. Which made them think they were good with the 0945z time. Just a thought.

I don’t get it: EITHER it was post 5.45, in which case SW would have been talking to the tower for clearance, OR it was pre 5.45, in which case they would not have been talking to the tower. Surely they can’t have it both ways: they weren’t trying to communicate with the tower, so they must have know it wasn’t yet 5.45.

Incredibly irresponsible by Southwest --- and all to shave 2 MINUTES (at most!!!) off their flight time! (it's definitely part of the Southwest culture to try to shave a minute off here and a minute off there when they can. Southwest runs particularly tight schedules for their flights - particularly in comparison to the competition. They need to turn planes quick and making up time in-air helps on that front) Anyway, I get it. It's quicker to get to Baltimore if you're taking off to the west as opposed to the north. But the 2 Republic planes in this video are also heading to locations (Detroit and Dulles, respectively) where it would be more advantageous off runway 29 instead of running 36! They followed the rules, the Southwest pilots didn't. Shame on them.

"Not what we're showing." You're telling me in a multi-million dollar machine with GPS uplinks that provide time accurate to somewhere between milliseconds and microseconds, you have a clock that's off my THREE MINUTES? Are you running your aircraft off a mechanical watch? Also, radio seems to work just fine before and after telling you there was a vehicle on the runway and it was closed, what happened in between? Was it the flight deck not paying attention?

The level of ignorance of SWE4805 crew was shocking. Such a shame. SW is known for the cabin crew awesomeness but I guess cockpit crew is a whole new different story. Why would you monitor a different frequency instead of the tower frequency when you were ready for taking off? Ridiculous.

Immediately apply for immunity!!🤣🤣🤣

Time for FAA to take some licences from criminally negligent pilots

Ever since Southwest softened up their pilot requirements, they’ve been having too many close calls.

Pilot really didnt care.🤔😳

My question as someone who knows jack about airport procedures is why would you start taking off with an obstruction on the runway even if you have permission?

Yeehaww, ten gallon hats all round again 😂

southwest back at it again with the incompetent pilots 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Talk about an uncontrolled airport.

This pilot was setting records, needed that Runway 29 departure for best route to Baltimore. Average flight time is 1:09 but this guy got it done in 1:04 . 6:47 AM arrival is legendary.

Thank you for the video🙏

The pilot knew it was closed. His tone of arrogance on the mic, confirms it.

Thank you very much for picking this Incident up!👍 I was really waiting for it. It indeed clarifies what had happened. Openly said: So far as I can see it was Cowboy manner by the Southwest Pilots, not a misunderstanding: If he would have had a wrong clock showing .45 he should have contacted the Tower and pleased for a Takeoff-Clearance. - Fortunately nobody was hurt, but anyway: This shouldn´t happen.

So not using common traffic advisory is not a practice at Southwest?

I've been watching this and all other air-related channels over the last decade. And I have to say since 2023 we have so many "closed calls" that beats what I have watched for the last 10 years. What's going on with aviation?

wow ..... what a buffon on the radio - YEE Haw was all that was missing

I think "Clearance valid to take off in 3 minutes" was the problem.

Even though they didn't announce it until :45, I guarantee you all the controllers in that Tower saw and heard this whole thing happen. 😂

Read your NOTAMS.....

I’m going to start saying “magical” just like that now

Seems like any airport operating multiple large airlines should have tower controllers there for those arrivals and departures.

I’m not surprised at the pilots response. SMH. When he was planning to take off on a runway that was just opened yet he never made any calls to confirm that the opening was on time nor to confirm that it was open at the time of break release.

the magic happened here 2:33-2:43