Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 Totally Explained

Everything about Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 totally explained

Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 (N668SW) was a scheduled passenger flight from McCarran International Airport (KLAS), Las Vegas, Nevada to Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (BUR), Burbank, California that overran the runway during landing.

Accident Summary

On March 5 2000 at 6:11pm Pacific Standard Time Southwest Flight 1455, a Boeing 737-3T5, overran the end of the runway while landing at Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport. It crashed through a metal blast wall and then through the airport perimeter wall and came to rest on Hollywood Way, a four-lane city street, near a Chevron gas station. Of the 142 airplane occupants, 2 received serious injuries, and 42 received minor injuries.
   The NTSB concluded that the probable cause for the accident was excessive flight speed and too high of a glidepath, and the flight crew's failure to abort the approach when conditions were not met for a stable landing. Additional responsibility was placed on the flight controller's positioning of the airplane as it approached the airport.
   Months later, the pilots were fired as a result of this incident. Southwest Airlines admitted the pilots' actions were negligent.
   At the time, a Southwest spokesperson termed it "the worst accident" in the airline's history. Air safety experts and pilots suggested the incident was an example of a situation where "fast, steep, unstabilized approaches" are dangerous, and of how inadequate the safety margins around the Burbank runways are (as well as similar U.S. airports).
   The gas station missed by the aircraft was later ordered to close due to safety concerns.

Flight Details

Flight 1455 departed McCarran International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, Nevada at 1650, more than 2 hours behind schedule due to inclement weather in the area. At 1804:02, when the aircraft was north of the BUR outer marker, the SCT controller instructed the aircraft to maintain or greater until further notice. The controller later indicated this was to place the aircraft into the approach pattern between two other flights. The captain acknowledged the instructions.
   At 1804:42 the first officer informed the captain that the target airspeed for landing would be . This value was based on standard procedures in the Southwest Airlines Flight Operations Manual (FOM). At 1805:13 the captain told the first officer that the air traffic controller had instructed them to remain at or greater "for a while."
   At 1805:54 the controller cleared Flight 1455 to descend to, and at 1807 cleared the flight to descend to . At 1808 the controller cleared flight 1455 for a visual approach to runway 8 with a restriction to remain at or above 3,000 ft (above mean sea level) until passing the Van Nuys very high frequency omnidirectional range (VOR) beacon. This navigational aid is approximately from the runway. Radar data suggest that the flight began its descent from about from the runway.
   According to the Aeronautical Information Manual, Section 4-4-11, this approach clearance automatically canceled any previous speed assignments. According to the final accident report, traffic conditions no longer warranted the speed assignment after the controller cleared the flight to descend to, but the controller didn't verbally cancel the speed assignment.
   Contributing to the unstable attitude of the aircraft were controller instructions which placed the aircraft in an unfavorable position for final approach. The NTSB concluded that the controller positioned the aircraft too fast, too high, and too close to the runway threshold, although any of these factors could have been compensated for by the pilots.
   Southwest Airlines procedures instruct the pilot not flying to make altitude call-outs at 1000, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100, 50, 30, and . Additionally, call-outs are required if certain parameters are not met, in this case flight speed and sink rate. At 1809:32, one minute and thirteen seconds after approach clearance was given, and at of altitude, the captain began to slow the aircraft by deploying the flaps.
   At 1810:24 the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) began to sound a "sink rate" warning in the cockpit. The aircraft was descending at an angle of 7 degrees, when the angle of descent for most aircraft landing on that runway was 3 or 4 degrees. Both pilots ignored the warnings. At 1810:44 the warning system in the cockpit began to sound "whoop, whoop, pull up." The captain responded to these warnings with "that's all right."
   The captain stated after the accident that he knew as the aircraft passed that he wasn't "in the slot", meaning the conditions hadn't been met for a safe landing, in this case because of an excessive airspeed. The captain further stated that he understood that if he wasn't "in the slot", procedures demanded a go-around maneuver to abort the landing. He couldn't explain why he didn't perform a go-around maneuver. The first officer likewise indicated after the accident that he was aware that they were not "in the slot", but said he believed the captain was taking corrective action.
   The aircraft touched down on the wet runway at about 182 knots, over the target airspeed. Furthermore, it touched down from the runway threshold, beyond the 1000-1500 ft range established by the Southwest Airlines FOM. The captain deployed the thrust reversers and then he and the first officer applied manual brakes, but according to the NTSB findings, under those conditions even maximum braking wouldn't have prevented the aircraft from overrunning the end of the runway.
   The NTSB released a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder where the flight's Captain, Howard Peterson, was quoted as saying "Well, there goes my career." moments after the accident.

Injuries

Of the 142 persons on board, 2 passengers sustained serious injuries; 41 passengers and the captain sustained minor injuries; and 94 passengers, 3 flight attendants, and the first officer sustained no injuries. The airplane sustained extensive exterior damage and some internal damage to the passenger cabin. During the accident sequence, the forward service door (1R) escape slide inflated inside the airplane; the nose gear collapsed; and the forward dual flight attendant jumpseat, which was occupied by two flight attendants, partially collapsed.
The inflated escape slide blocked both forward doors from being used to evacuate the aircraft, and prevented two flight attendants seated on the forward jumpseat from assisting the evacuation. There was no fire, but had there been a fire, this malfunctioning slide would have dramatically affected the survivability of the occupants. As a result of this occurrence, the NTSB issued a safety recommendation to replace the slide cover latch brackets on forward slide compartments of all older Boeing 737 models to the latch brackets installed on later models.
As with runway 4R/22L at the Little Rock National Airport, site of the American Airlines Flight 1420 overrun accident, runway 8/26 in Burbank was exempt from the runway safety area standard. The NTSB cited this accident in a recommendation for installing the Engineered Materials Arrestor System (EMAS) at airports where it isn't feasible to establish the runway safety area (RSA). A US$4,000,000 EMAS subsequently installed as a result of this accident at this airport, now the Bob Hope Airport, stopped a private jet carrying New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez on Friday, October 13, 2006 with no injuries or aircraft damage.

Dispute with City of Burbank

Burbank city officials demanded that Southwest Airlines pay their $40,000 bill for services, including overtime for police officers and firefighters, related to the March 5 accident. Southwest refused to pay stating that they're entitled to emergency services since they pay taxes to the city.

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