June 17th 2024.
An incident on Southwest Airlines Flight 2786 has caught the attention of the United States, as the passenger jet rapidly descended towards the ocean near a Hawaiian island on April 11. The news, which was only made public last Friday after Bloomberg reported on an internal memo sent to the pilots, has sparked an investigation into what exactly went wrong.
According to the memo, the incident was caused by a "newer" first officer who accidentally pushed forward on the control column. Flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange revealed that the plane was dropping at a rate of over 4000 feet per minute while only 600 feet above sea level. This was followed by a sudden climb, with the Boeing 737 Max 8 dipping as low as 400 feet.
In response to the incident, Southwest Airlines released a statement emphasizing their commitment to safety through their Safety Management System. However, they did not address the memo or provide any details on the cause of the incident. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also launched an investigation after being notified of the incident immediately.
The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association has not yet commented on the incident. The flight in question was a short trip from Honolulu to Lihue airport on the neighboring island of Kauai. The internal memo revealed that the pilots had decided to abort a landing due to poor weather conditions, and the plane ultimately returned to Honolulu.
This is not the first time a similar incident has occurred in Hawaii. In December 2022, a United Airlines flight departing from a different Hawaiian airport also experienced a dangerous descent towards the ocean. The plane came within 748 feet of disaster, with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) attributing the incident to miscommunication between the pilots about the plane's flaps. It is unclear at this time whether the NTSB will investigate this latest incident.
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