A dangerous Southwest Airlines incident from October is just coming to light. The NTSB has just released a preliminary report of what happened between a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 and a private Diamond DA40 on October 19, 2024 in Long Beach.
- At approximately 2:42 p.m. the crew of the Diamond DA40 established communication with Long Beach air traffic control and were cleared to land on runway 30. They were instructed to hold short of runway 26R due to intersecting traffic.
- The DA40’s crew requested to circle and land on runway 26R instead, but this request was denied by the controller, who reiterated the instruction to land on runway 30 and hold short of the intersecting runway. The DA40’s pilots acknowledged and complied.
- Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines flight WN1671 from Oakland contacted ATC 5 minutes later. The flight was cleared to land on runway 30 and provided a traffic advisory about an unrelated aircraft operating in the area.
- Two minutes after that, the DA40 landed on runway 30 and reported to ATC that they were holding short of runway 26R, as instructed.
- The Southwest jet landed on the same runway. As the 737-700 completed its landing rollout at a speed of 17 knots, the flight crew reported seeing the DA40 on the runway ahead. The two aircraft came within 857 feet of each other.
Fortunately, both aircraft proceeded to their respective parking areas without further complications.
The FAA’s air traffic control is very broken and a silent safety risk. Technology modernization has been poorly managed and in crisis for decades.
Southwest in particular has had challenges, with last year’s near-miss in Austin, another jet coming within 150 feet of the Tampa Bay water, a flight departing from a closed runway with a vehicle in its path one nearly colliding with a JetBlue plane at DC’s National airport and one buzzing the LaGuardia tower.
Just two months ago, air traffic control put two Southwest planes on the same runway and in June another of the airline’s 737s descended to just over 500 feet while still 9 miles out from the Oklahoma City airport.
Over the summer the FAA launched a safety audit of Southwest Airlines. The FAA’s Office of Inspector General has previously found that the agency “has not effectively overseen Southwest Airlines’ systems for managing safety risks.”
Since the start of the pandemic, the FAA ‘closed’ 9 of 11 recommendations to address deficiencies in monitoring Southwest Airlines safety.
However five years later there are still outstanding items that the FAA has agreed are problems but have not been fixed.
