Southwest Airlines Flight 1248

The damaged Boeing 737 behind the runway

Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 was a flight of American airline Southwest Airlines with a Boeing 737- 7H4, the coming of the runway 13C took the morning on 8 December 2005 from Baltimore at Chicago -Midway Airport, while landing on the end of the runway also shot and came to a stop on a road. There, buried the machine cars among themselves, with a six year old boy, Joshua Woods, died. His remaining family was slightly injured to severe.

Expiration

On Thursday, 8 December 2005 launched the machine, a Boeing 737-700 Southwest Airlines for Flight 1248 from Baltimore to Chicago. There was indeed a snow storm, but there was talk of " acceptable terms ". The visibility was at times less than a mile and at the airport was up to 8 cm of snow. Nevertheless, the pilot decided to land. The airport reported wind from the east and east-southeast at about 20 km / h The approach to runway 13C was the most direct, the other on the 31C, however, reduced the risk of a go, because there was still quite possible to see the runway. On this runway However, there were often dangerous tailwinds.

The crew was unsure - a landing at any other airport in Chicago could be safer, or you could have waited for better weather. Not least because of the enormous cost pressure, the airline decided to but - as previously planned - for runway 13C. There sat the machine on at the mark, so that even for braking remained about 1400 meters of the 1988 meter track left. Because of the winds, however, shot the machine over the runway out, broke through the airport closures and came to a stop on a road. It tore off one engine and the nose gear collapsed. The machine buried at least three cars among themselves, in a there was a family of five, whose six- year-old son died. The passengers of the aircraft managed to escape via the emergency slides and after a short time also appeared the fire department, which sprayed the plane with foam.

Investigations

Immediately after the accident, the NTSB took up the investigation. She noted that the pilots had been insufficiently trained when it came to the use of the automatic braking system. This was South West only since less time actually use. The use of this system could have prevented the accident, because without these brakes if the machine was about 1600 meters used ( because of the weather ) to safely come to a stop. The reverse thrust was not activated until 18 seconds after touchdown.

Follow

The NTSB made ​​a new law requiring that the area behind a newly built runway must be free before and a so-called " Runway Safety Area " to German " runway safety zone." This makes it less dangerous if an aircraft overshoots the runway.