FAA investigating Southwest flight that came within 400 feet of crashing into the ocean | CNN

girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to News@lemmy.world – 106 points – FAA investigating Southwest flight that came within 400 feet of crashing into the ocean | CNN
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A federal investigation is underway after a Southwest Airlines flight plunged toward the ocean off the coast of a Hawaiian island.

The incident occurred April 11 aboard Southwest Flight 2786, but only came to light publicly on Friday after Bloomberg reported Southwest sent a memo to pilots about the incident. Bloomberg reported the memo indicated a “newer” first officer was flying at the time and inadvertently pushed forward on the control column.

Flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange shows the plane dropping at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute while only 600 feet above sea level. The Boeing 737 Max 8 flew as low as 400 feet before rapidly climbing.

“Nothing is more important to Southwest than Safety,” the airline said. “Through our robust Safety Management System, the event was addressed appropriately as we always strive for continuous improvement.”

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I think it’s time to accept 737 Maxes are just cursed and scrap them for parts.

I mean ... let's keep everything the same but slap way bigger engines on the planes, then because it's the "same airframe" there's no need for pilot retraining! Isn't that convenient, Southwest? You know, the airline that flies exclusively the 737 and didnt want to retrain any pilots. Everything is working out great, right?

Boeing has fallen from an engineering powerhouse into some lines on a wall street asshole's spreadsheet.

You mean lines that some wall street asshole does off a sheet.

I'm no aerospace professional, but that would probably be okay. The issue with the max 8 is the software changes they made, like the addition of the MCAS, which changed the behavior of the computer system, without telling the pilots.

You may be right. The FAA already grounded and inspected all MAX 9s. Now it seems like MAX 8s are next.

SW on the crash: "We love safety. Nothing is more important than safety! Don't associate our brand with negative feelings, associate it with safety instead :)"

Fucking lmao

At least they didn't ignore the terrain alarm.

I read somewhere but can't find it now about a time where a plane crashed or nearly crashed because the older pilot was sure the "terrain" alarm was a mistake and ignored the directive to pull up. I believe they were flying on instruments (common these days at night or poor visibility).

"Bloomberg reported the memo indicated a “newer” first officer was flying at the time and inadvertently pushed forward on the control column."

So, is this another "pilot tries to crash the plane" incident? It's hard to imagine how a pilot could "inadvertently" shove the controls forward, especially at that altitude when both would totally dialed-in to flying the plane and doing their checklists and whatnot (vs. say, getting up to go to the toilet or something). Fortunately, "the event was addressed appropriately as we always strive for continuous improvement" said SW, so now I feel better.

The MAX 8 was previously the plane that flew into the ground twice because a pilot would push the plane up and the software that is required to keep it in the air (MCAS) would auto correct and send them straight down thinking they were climbing into a stall. So this could be a pilot issue, but this plane also has a lot of issues and it totally could be the plane over correcting.

MCAS, (must crash airplane system,) the system that caused those crashes is present on all max variants. The involved aircraft were max 8's because that was the first to enter production.

Every other max variant has the same system. Changes to, and knowledge of MCAS should prevent future crashes but this is an issue that affects every 737 max, despite only max 8's crashing from it.

It's not hard to imagine. Spacial Disorientation is where your brain can't tell the difference between acceleration and climbing very sharply. It happens when there's no visual references. It sounds like the flight was dealing with overcast weather, so there might not have been a true horizon.

It's happened before. Atlas Air Flight 3591. United Airlines Flight 1722. Flight 1722