Southwest flight came within 400 feet of crashing into the ocean

Just making sense of the numbers to give a perspective:<p>While at 600 feet, the “newer” first officer inadvertently pushed forward on the control column for about 3 seconds. In the span of 3 seconds the plane dropped from 600 to 400 feet. Then the situation was corrected and the airplane climbed. So if the first officer had kept the same rate of descent for 6 more seconds, it would have crashed. The article quotes the rate of descent as 4000 feet&#x2F;minutes.<p>Some more details here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bnnbloomberg.ca&#x2F;southwest-plane-plunged-within-400-feet-of-ocean-near-hawaii-1.2085519" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bnnbloomberg.ca&#x2F;southwest-plane-plunged-within-4...</a><p>Edit: for the curious here is the flight data: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flightaware.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;flight&#x2F;SWA2786&#x2F;history&#x2F;20240412&#x2F;0427Z&#x2F;PHNL&#x2F;PHNL" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flightaware.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;flight&#x2F;SWA2786&#x2F;history&#x2F;2024...</a> and the track log: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flightaware.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;flight&#x2F;SWA2786&#x2F;history&#x2F;20240412&#x2F;0427Z&#x2F;PHNL&#x2F;PHNL&#x2F;tracklog" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flightaware.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;flight&#x2F;SWA2786&#x2F;history&#x2F;2024...</a> you can see at around Thu 4&#x2F;11 at 10:12:47 PM PDT the airplane made the rapid descent, then climbed back up quickly. However the ADS data shown by flightaware is too granular (one data point every 16-18 seconds) so we see the minimum altitude as 875 feet, but in reality the plane went lower. Apparently some other site (ADS-B Exchange) has more granular data, but I don&#x27;t have access to it and am too lazy to create an account (is it free?)

This is not an uncommon mistake for pilots in training to make. It sounds strange, but you have to keep in mind that this maneuver is done with no outside visibility (that&#x27;s the reason for the go around). So the pilot is only looking at his instruments.<p>The first officer had to do several things at the same time, and for a few seconds did not monitor the aircraft pitch attitude well enough.<p>In a jet the difference between a normal (about 600 to 700 ft&#x2F;min) descend or this rapid descend is only something like 5 degrees. So it&#x27;s easy to get this wrong if you look away from the instruments for just a few seconds. Especially if you&#x27;re changing configuration (flaps) and power at the same time, because both have an effect on pitch.

The first officer made a mistake and the captain quickly corrected, per other articles on this. A lot of the headlines around this have been very click-baity, trying to imply that it is a Boeing or Max problem when it is just old-fashioned pilot error.

<i>On approach</i>. I think that’s an important detail missing from the headline. Still a shocking near-miss, but it’s not like it dropped from 35,000 feet to 400 feet before correcting.

The approach chart shows an MDA (Minimum Descent Altitude) of 940&#x27;. You DO NOT DESCEND BELOW MDA unless the runway is in sight. Approach design standards provide some margins, but a 500-600&#x27; altitude bust blows past those margins. Luckily this was an over water approach. The GPWS alert seems to have caught this in time.<p>Busting MDA on a missed approach is a fail on your Instrument Rating flight test.<p>That said, a 737 is pitch sensitive. No mention is made of the flight mode.

Discussion (34 points, 23 hours ago, 26 comments) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40684560">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40684560</a>

TL;DR from the article is a newbie pushed the column forward by accident and corrected very quickly. Dropped from 600 feet to 400 feet at a rate of 4,000 feet per minute. That’s about three seconds of too-fast descent at a constant 4,000ft&#x2F;minute, though it wouldn’t have been constant so it may have been a bit longer that that, mostly at lower rates of descent.<p>Not some huge plunge. Worth an investigation but the headline’s clickbaity.

per <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;avherald.com&#x2F;h?article=519ee0ab&amp;opt=0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;avherald.com&#x2F;h?article=519ee0ab&amp;opt=0</a><p>&gt; What happened in these 16 seconds is described in an internal memo circulating in Southwest Airlines stating, that during the go around due to weather conditions the first officer, pilot flying, inadvertently pushed the control column forward while monitoring the power settings causing the aircraft to descend to about 400 feet MSL before the aircraft started climbing again.

What happens to the pilot in error in this case? Learn from mistake and keep flying? Grounded? Fired?

Why do articles like this get written? This is a minor hiccup that was pretty far away from disaster. Maybe a better title would be &#x27;a worse than normal approach happened resulting in nothing of consequence&#x27;. This is stoking unreasonable fear to the detriment of the industry, passengers and journalism as a whole.

My last flight came within 40 feet of crashing into the tarmac.

This incident occurred in April not now, and was pilot error in pushing the controls too far forward. Looking at the various news articles about this incident, I find the reporting is a bit deceptive in some of the other articles that lead with emphasis on the make and model of the plane (Boeing 737 Max), even though it is not relevant to the incident which is purely pilot error.

But was it boeing or airbus???