SW Airlines catastrophic in-flight engine failure

Why would the combination of engine failure, wing damage, and cabin damage resulting in decompression not be a combination they've all trained & practiced previously? It's been well known for ages & ages that one category of engine failure is the "parts pop out & hit other parts" category.
 
Checkmite said:
"We have part of the aircraft missing" comes at only a minute and a half into the recording I posted, which certainly isn't the beginning of the incident but seems to be the beginning of her conversation with the TRACON.
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The recording I listened to was ~31 minutes long.

The youtube one may be edited to keep it short?
 
William Parcher said:
Also, the media is reporting several different versions of this quote and I wonder which one is exactly what she said.

"They said there's a hole and uh... someone went out."

Some versions don't have the "they said" part.
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Checkmite linked to the air traffic control audio in the post below. "They said..." at 3:05 in.

Checkmite said:
Some ATC audio from the incident:



The PIC is Tammie Jo Shults, a former Navy FA-18 pilot.
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Great. So why the hell did you say this?

Because it wasn't true, she was calm throughout the event, and which sounded like you were saying she was calm because she thought nothing was seriously wrong.

Maybe you didn't mean it to, but it came out incredibly dismissive of the pilot's talent, which some might justifiably question as sexist.
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I said I thought she was unaware...

You changed the meaning of what I said imo, by changing it to "she thought", to make it seem like I was insulting her.

It's perfectly acceptable to simply be unaware of something and therefore not react to it or mention it on the radio.

Plus "aviate, navigate, communicate".

Communicate is always last, fly the plane is always first.

When the engine went out, the pilots would have been very busy flying the plane and unable to go and take a look and not worried about contacting ATC. The cabin crew was also very busy and unable to report to the cockpit for a while.

And I stick by my opinion. I think she was unaware of the extent of the problems initially.
 
Delvo said:
Why would the combination of engine failure, wing damage, and cabin damage resulting in decompression not be a combination they've all trained & practiced previously? It's been well known for ages & ages that one category of engine failure is the "parts pop out & hit other parts" category.
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Maybe they do. I don't have a copy of their training syllabus, nor their recurrency scenarios, do you?

The scenarios on recurrency training (evaluation) are usually devised by the Instructor/Evaluator, so there is the possibility they practice that specific scenario. Quite frankly, it is not necessary to practice the specific combination as that is very variable anyway. They are paid to think and deal with each problem in sequence of priority and they practice those types of scenarios.
 
juggling multiple problems

Reheat,

The youtube video by Mentour Pilot (link above) indicated that the training scenarios are usually for one type of problem not several.
 
LTC8K6 said:
I said I thought she was unaware...

You changed the meaning of what I said imo, by changing it to "she thought", to make it seem like I was insulting her.

It's perfectly acceptable to simply be unaware of something and therefore not react to it or mention it on the radio.

Plus "aviate, navigate, communicate".

Communicate is always last, fly the plane is always first.

When the engine went out, the pilots would have been very busy flying the plane and unable to go and take a look and not worried about contacting ATC. The cabin crew was also very busy and unable to report to the cockpit for a while.

And I stick by my opinion. I think she was unaware of the extent of the problems initially.
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I accept that you didn't mean it the way you said it. But you did say it, I changed nothing in the meaning.

"her calmness... is related to believing"

What else does related mean there except she wouldn't be calm if she knew the full extent of the problem?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I accept that you didn't mean it the way you said it. But you did say it, I changed nothing in the meaning.

"her calmness... is related to believing"

What else does related mean there except she wouldn't be calm if she knew the full extent of the problem?
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The individual we are discussing seems unaware that a good deal of Naval Flight Training is specifically designed to wash out any pilot Candidates who show they have a tendacy to panic under pressure.
 
The Navy did a study a while back (during Vietnam, IIRC) that determined the most stressful activity undertaken by pilots was landing on an aircraft carrier--even more so than combat.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
Cockpit recordings, on the other hand, can be quite excited and rambunctious, even in cases where the ATC comms sound cool and collected.
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It sounds like an SNL skit.

CVR: "OH ****! An engine's *********** exploded!"
To WTC: "Uh....tower, we have an apparent engine failure. Uh....we may want to declare an emergency."
CVR: "HOLY *********** ****** A PASSENGER WAS SUCKED OUT AT 30,000 FEET!"
To WTC: "Uh....tower, we're going to need a medical team on standby, we have uh....reports of injuries"
CVR: "THAT'S IT WE'RE GOING TO DIE OH JESUS *********** CHRIST SOMEONE HELP US I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE"
To WTC: "Uh...yeah, we're going to confirm that emergency now."
 
MikeG said:
I believe it's more complicated than that. There were at least 2 scenarios here (loss of engine, cabin depressurisation), with a potential 3rd (fire), each of which they train for individually, but which they aren't trained to handle at the same time.
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Engine out is a quick response as long as they aren't taking off and pilots (as a group) have to deal with that regularly in real life. Then dive. The important part is that she followed her training. The preventable disasters happen when pilots don't do that. There are several examples of that. AF443 is the one that comes to mind.
 
LTC8K6 said:
The recording I listened to was ~31 minutes long.

The youtube one may be edited to keep it short?
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It certainly is edited, likely to contain only communications relating to the flight in question and to remove dead air.

But it is pertinent that the pilot's voice and demeanor doesn't change when she reports the damage.

Obviously she could not have been aware of the extent of the problem until the cabin crew informed her; but I don't think there's any reason whatsoever to suspect that took longer than a couple of minutes, regardless of what she was saying on the radio. She was merely observing radio discipline: at the beginning after the emergency was declared, all she needed was routing information so she could set up the approach. She informed them that they had lost an engine so they could not hold and the route had to be as simple and straight-in as possible. No other information was relevant at that point. Later during the approach phase, when ATC was discussing sequencing, she informed them she would be slow because there was damage to the airplane, which meant another flight could be landed in front of her without issue, a matter of some concern to the controller. Again - relevant information only. And later still, when she was about to set up for the long final, she requested ATC relay to the airport to have emergency services standing by because there were injured passengers. The right information at the right time.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Reheat,

The youtube video by Mentour Pilot (link above) indicated that the training scenarios are usually for one type of problem not several.
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Not my understanding. The idea is to come up with a complex scenario to test their reactions and understanding of flying in depth. If a pilot panics in an emergency they aren't much use to you.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Reheat,

The youtube video by Mentour Pilot (link above) indicated that the training scenarios are usually for one type of problem not several.
Click to expand...

Then they're different than all of the other Airlines with which I'm familiar. On second thought we may be speaking of different things. Initial training would be one major problem at a time, but when proficiency is achieved the scenarios get more complicated with multiple emergencies simultaneously. Recurrency checks are the same way. The instructors/evaluators intentionally overload the crew with complicated emergencies.

It's the same way in all military training (both AF and Navy) and in all airlines with which I'm familiar.
 
Avoid the window seats over the left wing when you fly Southwest...

Southwest Airlines jet diverts because of cracked window

USA Today said:
A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Newark Wednesday morning diverted to Cleveland because of a broken window, a passenger said.

"On my way to NJ for work and #Southwest957 gets a window crack," said Alejandro Aguina on Twitter. "Only outside crack so we're all safe."...
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Includes photos. It's almost the same location as the woman-sucker window.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...ghts-diverts-because-cracked-window/573435002
 
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