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.”
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.
You’re thinking of the max 9, not 8
You’re incorrect. 2 MAX 8 crashes killed over 300 people.
MAX 9 had a door plug blow out. Nobody died.
So I am, my bad.
Max 8, not 9.
Link
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
Good ol’ somatogravic illusion.