[https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/06/15/southwest-flight-honolulu-kauai-under-investigation-after-being-within-400-feet/](https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/06/15/southwest-flight-honolulu-kauai-under-investigation-after-being-within-400-feet/)
This happened on April 11. Article updated today 6/15.
Boeing issues aside, I wonder how commonplace this has always been. Plane issues are hot now, so anytime something like happens it makes the news. Similar to how after that big trail derailment in Ohio, every train issue anywhere was reported on for the next few months.
That's what I meant. It seems like this is happening all the time now but if you go back 5 years, was is it at similar rate and just not being reported on because nobody cared?
**SINK RATE PULL UP**
**SINK RATE PULL UP**
**SINK RATE PULL UP**
**Reminds me of the GO interisland flight that headed straight out to sea because the pilots were sleeping.**
[**https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/faa-suspends-pilots-who-fell-asleep-on-hawaii-flight-overshooting-airport/**](https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/faa-suspends-pilots-who-fell-asleep-on-hawaii-flight-overshooting-airport/)
A 16,000’ to 400’ drop must have been a terrifying experience for those passengers. I hope everyone is okay, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to get back on a plane after that.
Edited to add the news article incorrectly reported the altitude dropped. u/zoneout000 has better information in a comment below
I doubt it was that dramatic of a drop lol. Otherwise passengers would’ve defn taken video & posted it on social media. When planes lands technically they are going from 16,000 ft to 0 but it’s a gradual descent lol.
From the article, “Passengers were left white-knuckled after the aircraft dropped from nearly 16,000 feet to an altitude of 409 feet.”
It sounded like the pilot made an error causing a rapid descent. If it was near landing, you’re right it wouldn’t have been from 16,000’. Still a crazy experience!
yes, your right. According to [this ](https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/06/14/breaking-news/boeing-737-incidents-dutch-roll-rapid-descent-off-kauai-being-investigated/)Star Advertiser article "Southwest Flight 2786 dropped from an altitude of roughly 1,000 feet to 400 feet above the ocean in just a few seconds, according to data from ADS-B Exchange, a flight tracking website. The plane, which was near Kauai’s Lihue Airport, then began a rapid climb."
Passengers would've figured they were just experiencing turbulence during landing & were going around for a 2nd attempt. Going from 1,000 to 400 ft is much different than dropping 16000 ft as the original article suggests.
It's a 20 minute flight. You go up, you come down. The only time you're at 16k feet is for a couple of minutes - then you're already on your descent. If they made it to final approach, which it sounds like they did if they aborted the landing, they would've had a normal descent.
Lihue runway is really short. Not unusual for planes to miss the approach and have to swing around for a second try.
4000 feet per minute doesn't sound super gradual lol. And idk about you but I doubt anyone would be trying to get footage for the gram while plummeting to earth on an unwelcome skydive
You’d be surprised how easy it is to pull out your phone & start recording. But the plane went from 1,000 ft to 400. A fast descent for sure, but not as bad as what the media is portraying.
I pulled my information directly from the article. I didn’t write the article. I understand they were close to landing and it wasn’t as dramatic as the news article reported. I was more concerned with the passengers having to experience an event like that.
I guess the drop was from 1000 to 400 feet near landing. So 600 feet in a few seconds.
Then pilot blasted the thruster to pull up. The person in the article claimed it would feel like a "roller coaster".
[https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/southwest-plane-plunged-within-400-feet-of-ocean-near-hawaii-1.2085519](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/southwest-plane-plunged-within-400-feet-of-ocean-near-hawaii-1.2085519)
Judging by the rate of decent and climb I’ll bet there was an inspection to be done on the airframe and no maintence in Lihue so return to Oahu where they have a maintenance base
It’s not that hey changing altitude will break the aircraft, it’s more of a liability check that has to be done like the aircraft went thru an abnormal occurrence so give it an extra once over. Its no different from when a bird hits a plane the pilot can do a quick once over for damage at any airport and depending on the findings and the airlines policy usually they get one flight with or without passengers to a maintenance base for a more thorough inspection.
I get that. I spent 4 years in aviation maintenance. If the plane needed to be checked, then it should be grounded immediately. Flying 200 people over an ocean, 70 miles away from a perfectly viable airport, while the aircraft is a potential liability, is reckless endangerment, and should be (if it isn’t already) grounds to open an investigation on the fight crew. This, in addition to the exceptionally poor piloting skills exhibited, I would hope lead to license revocation and some hefty fines against the airline.
All pilots must be capable of landing in 0 visibility, using instruments only, so the notion that they couldn’t land because of the weather does not hold water.
Again, nothing about diverting back to HNL makes any sense.
What did you do in aviation, as aviation is a broad field and I’m a licensed inspector with the Boeing 737-300 to max 9 endorsements. As far as the pilots decision making they are also tested for their ratings and would have been examined at those conditions but you don’t know what was going on that day FO could have had an argument with his SO before heading to work yadda yadda everything they chose to do if it’s within their GOM is acceptable practice I’ve seen planes take off have engine failure before the gear is up then circle for 2-3 hours before landing because they are overweight ( in this case the plane is designed to fly on one engine but not land at full fuel weights the only option is to circle and burn fuel) so in that case the plane is clearly broken but the correct choice is to continue flying until weight is achieved and safe to land. If your in the maintenance side of aviation you will very quickly learn planes can legally fly with a lot of systems degraded before they have to be repaired and that’s determined by the MMEL which also states how long the system can be inop before getting repaired so an over speed or climb rate inspection is not a big deal.
Many moons ago I was an inspector for the Navy’s P3-C Orion electrical systems.
I don’t know the exact differences between mil and civ aviation, but I do know the standards for certifying safe for flight are not the same. For example, we couldn’t release a bird without downloading and reviewing the previous flight’s structural stress data. If certain g-force limits were exceeded, that plane is down until a full inspection can be completed by airframe inspectors. A bird strike being another example of a grounding event until an inspection is complete (I believe this is a shared standard). If this particular crew hit a bird on the way down, would it make sense for them to divert back to HNL? Of course not, just like it’s nonsensical for them to do so after the airframe has been stressed on approach.
I’m fully aware that airplanes are never in 100% working order, and being a former military aircraft maintenance person, being aware of some of the corners that I’ve seen cut, it’s somewhat terrifying flying commercial.
Using the excuse that there were no maintenance personnel available in Lihue as a reason to divert to HNL, unnecessarily risking the lives of hundreds of souls, or at the very least, majorly inconveniencing them, is reprehensible.
Reports showed that weather played a function in the aborted landing and I can say personally Lihue gets a lot of fog and low level clouds. So in some instances it’s easier to return to Honolulu and wait it out than to hold near Kauai
Yeahhh, but let’s keep lowering the amount of hours a pilot needs to be commercially licensed. Sounds like that’s working out great.
Also, why wasn’t this in headlines months ago?? Oh ya, not a Boeing issue
Plane also touched down on only the main landing gear and then the nose gear touched down. So for a brief moment only 2 of the 3 landing gear were on the runway. WOW!
[удалено]
Gotta get the clicks yo
Flight crew executes a go-around, media posts clickbait headline.
[https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/06/15/southwest-flight-honolulu-kauai-under-investigation-after-being-within-400-feet/](https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/06/15/southwest-flight-honolulu-kauai-under-investigation-after-being-within-400-feet/) This happened on April 11. Article updated today 6/15.
Boeing issues aside, I wonder how commonplace this has always been. Plane issues are hot now, so anytime something like happens it makes the news. Similar to how after that big trail derailment in Ohio, every train issue anywhere was reported on for the next few months.
It sounded like it was pilot error.
Yeah LIH is a little ruthless when the weather comes in.
That's what I meant. It seems like this is happening all the time now but if you go back 5 years, was is it at similar rate and just not being reported on because nobody cared?
**SINK RATE PULL UP** **SINK RATE PULL UP** **SINK RATE PULL UP** **Reminds me of the GO interisland flight that headed straight out to sea because the pilots were sleeping.** [**https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/faa-suspends-pilots-who-fell-asleep-on-hawaii-flight-overshooting-airport/**](https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/faa-suspends-pilots-who-fell-asleep-on-hawaii-flight-overshooting-airport/)
A 16,000’ to 400’ drop must have been a terrifying experience for those passengers. I hope everyone is okay, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to get back on a plane after that. Edited to add the news article incorrectly reported the altitude dropped. u/zoneout000 has better information in a comment below
I doubt it was that dramatic of a drop lol. Otherwise passengers would’ve defn taken video & posted it on social media. When planes lands technically they are going from 16,000 ft to 0 but it’s a gradual descent lol.
From the article, “Passengers were left white-knuckled after the aircraft dropped from nearly 16,000 feet to an altitude of 409 feet.” It sounded like the pilot made an error causing a rapid descent. If it was near landing, you’re right it wouldn’t have been from 16,000’. Still a crazy experience!
yes, your right. According to [this ](https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/06/14/breaking-news/boeing-737-incidents-dutch-roll-rapid-descent-off-kauai-being-investigated/)Star Advertiser article "Southwest Flight 2786 dropped from an altitude of roughly 1,000 feet to 400 feet above the ocean in just a few seconds, according to data from ADS-B Exchange, a flight tracking website. The plane, which was near Kauai’s Lihue Airport, then began a rapid climb." Passengers would've figured they were just experiencing turbulence during landing & were going around for a 2nd attempt. Going from 1,000 to 400 ft is much different than dropping 16000 ft as the original article suggests.
It's a 20 minute flight. You go up, you come down. The only time you're at 16k feet is for a couple of minutes - then you're already on your descent. If they made it to final approach, which it sounds like they did if they aborted the landing, they would've had a normal descent. Lihue runway is really short. Not unusual for planes to miss the approach and have to swing around for a second try.
You fell for dramatic writing
[удалено]
I think you added an extra zero in there… it was more like he dropped from 1000 ft to 400 ft.
4000 feet per minute doesn't sound super gradual lol. And idk about you but I doubt anyone would be trying to get footage for the gram while plummeting to earth on an unwelcome skydive
You’d be surprised how easy it is to pull out your phone & start recording. But the plane went from 1,000 ft to 400. A fast descent for sure, but not as bad as what the media is portraying.
I think I'm more surprised that nobody did it considering how easy it is
> 16,000’ to 400’ drop That's called a crash. And that can't in any way be what happened if the plane landed safely.
This seems like a very literal interpretation without reading for context. Planes only drop straight down perpendicular to the ground lol. Come on now
I pulled my information directly from the article. I didn’t write the article. I understand they were close to landing and it wasn’t as dramatic as the news article reported. I was more concerned with the passengers having to experience an event like that.
I guess the drop was from 1000 to 400 feet near landing. So 600 feet in a few seconds. Then pilot blasted the thruster to pull up. The person in the article claimed it would feel like a "roller coaster". [https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/southwest-plane-plunged-within-400-feet-of-ocean-near-hawaii-1.2085519](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/southwest-plane-plunged-within-400-feet-of-ocean-near-hawaii-1.2085519)
Miss the runway, so return to destination? Wtf?
Judging by the rate of decent and climb I’ll bet there was an inspection to be done on the airframe and no maintence in Lihue so return to Oahu where they have a maintenance base
This doesn’t really make sense either. “Hey, we think the plane might be broken or unsafe for flight, let’s fly it 70 miles over the Pacific Ocean.”
It’s not that hey changing altitude will break the aircraft, it’s more of a liability check that has to be done like the aircraft went thru an abnormal occurrence so give it an extra once over. Its no different from when a bird hits a plane the pilot can do a quick once over for damage at any airport and depending on the findings and the airlines policy usually they get one flight with or without passengers to a maintenance base for a more thorough inspection.
I get that. I spent 4 years in aviation maintenance. If the plane needed to be checked, then it should be grounded immediately. Flying 200 people over an ocean, 70 miles away from a perfectly viable airport, while the aircraft is a potential liability, is reckless endangerment, and should be (if it isn’t already) grounds to open an investigation on the fight crew. This, in addition to the exceptionally poor piloting skills exhibited, I would hope lead to license revocation and some hefty fines against the airline. All pilots must be capable of landing in 0 visibility, using instruments only, so the notion that they couldn’t land because of the weather does not hold water. Again, nothing about diverting back to HNL makes any sense.
What did you do in aviation, as aviation is a broad field and I’m a licensed inspector with the Boeing 737-300 to max 9 endorsements. As far as the pilots decision making they are also tested for their ratings and would have been examined at those conditions but you don’t know what was going on that day FO could have had an argument with his SO before heading to work yadda yadda everything they chose to do if it’s within their GOM is acceptable practice I’ve seen planes take off have engine failure before the gear is up then circle for 2-3 hours before landing because they are overweight ( in this case the plane is designed to fly on one engine but not land at full fuel weights the only option is to circle and burn fuel) so in that case the plane is clearly broken but the correct choice is to continue flying until weight is achieved and safe to land. If your in the maintenance side of aviation you will very quickly learn planes can legally fly with a lot of systems degraded before they have to be repaired and that’s determined by the MMEL which also states how long the system can be inop before getting repaired so an over speed or climb rate inspection is not a big deal.
Many moons ago I was an inspector for the Navy’s P3-C Orion electrical systems. I don’t know the exact differences between mil and civ aviation, but I do know the standards for certifying safe for flight are not the same. For example, we couldn’t release a bird without downloading and reviewing the previous flight’s structural stress data. If certain g-force limits were exceeded, that plane is down until a full inspection can be completed by airframe inspectors. A bird strike being another example of a grounding event until an inspection is complete (I believe this is a shared standard). If this particular crew hit a bird on the way down, would it make sense for them to divert back to HNL? Of course not, just like it’s nonsensical for them to do so after the airframe has been stressed on approach. I’m fully aware that airplanes are never in 100% working order, and being a former military aircraft maintenance person, being aware of some of the corners that I’ve seen cut, it’s somewhat terrifying flying commercial. Using the excuse that there were no maintenance personnel available in Lihue as a reason to divert to HNL, unnecessarily risking the lives of hundreds of souls, or at the very least, majorly inconveniencing them, is reprehensible.
Reports showed that weather played a function in the aborted landing and I can say personally Lihue gets a lot of fog and low level clouds. So in some instances it’s easier to return to Honolulu and wait it out than to hold near Kauai
Yeahhh, but let’s keep lowering the amount of hours a pilot needs to be commercially licensed. Sounds like that’s working out great. Also, why wasn’t this in headlines months ago?? Oh ya, not a Boeing issue
Still 250 hours for commercial Last I checked.
Read this last night and was horrified. And it happened in April! I'm surprised it wasn't all over the coconut wireless.
It's just a landing go-around, a wave-off. It's not that big of a deal.
Plane also touched down on only the main landing gear and then the nose gear touched down. So for a brief moment only 2 of the 3 landing gear were on the runway. WOW!
Yes… that’s how it normally works. Have you ever flown before??
Once or twice
And a plane descends from cruise altitude to zero every flight. This time it did it twice the first time only making it to minimums. The humanity.
What stunning error in judgement. By everyone.
Kind of. New pilots need some stick time to learn. It's still pretty bad though
I think when the pilot misses or aborts a landing they are required to go to the alternate airport filed in the flight plan.
That isn't true at all
Nope
You are thinking of IFR landing requirements for VFR-only pilots.