Midway Accident: Spotlight on Short Runway & Weather
Sara Kehaulani Goo and Elissa Silverman
Washington Post
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Chicago (US):
Runway conditions at Chicago's Midway International Airport were reported to be "fair to poor" by a pilot who landed just minutes ahead of a Southwest Airlines jet that slid off the landing strip and slammed into vehicles on a road Thursday night, officials said yesterday.
The accident killed 6-year-old Joshua Woods of Indiana.
He was riding in the back seat of his family's Pontiac sedan, singing along with a Bruce Springsteen Christmas song, when the 737 crashed through a chain-link fence and hit the car.
Two passengers on the 737, which flew to Chicago from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, suffered minor injuries, a Southwest spokesman said, and their names were not released.Safety experts said the crash of Southwest Flight 1248 bore a strong resemblance to an August accident in Toronto when an Air France plane overshot a runway during a thunderstorm and landed in a ditch, bursting into flames.
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See Also:
Aircraft overruns a long-standing concern
Chicago crash plane fairly new, no known problems
NTSB investigates Southwest plane skid
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Experts said investigators are likely to focus on Midway's runway conditions at the time of the accident and whether the plane touched down too far down the runway, as well as looking at other related weather conditions. The airport received 7.7 inches of snow Thursday afternoon and evening, which fell at a rate of one inch per hour. "Snow was definitely having a significant impact on both airports' operations," said Wendy Abrams, spokeswoman for Chicago Airport System, which operates both airports.
Officials said that three planes had landed on the same runway -- 31C -- in the 30 minutes before Flight 1248: a 757, a 737 and a Gulfstream G4. The pilots of the first two planes reported that the first two-thirds of the runway were clear but that braking on the last third of the runway was "fair to poor" because of the snow.
Runway 31C is relatively short for commercial airplane use and cannot accommodate an aircraft larger than a 757. The runway is shorter than those at Reagan National Airport.
"With 6,500 feet, you don't have a lot of margin of error," said Greg Feith, a former National Transportation Safety Board accident investigator. He said investigators will want to know where the plane touched down. "You want that plane down in the first third -- or in the 'touchdown zone' -- of the runway. If you land anywhere out of that zone, you increase overrun potential," he said.
Midway experienced a similar crash exactly 33 years earlier -- Dec. 8, 1972. A United Airlines 737 skidded off a runway and crashed into several homes beyond the airport's fences, killing 43 of 61 passengers and two people on the ground.
In 2000, a Southwest jet overshot a runway in Burbank, Calif., and stopped feet from a gas station. No one was killed, and the accident was blamed on pilot error.
Sara Kehaulani Goo and Elissa Silverman
Washington Post
_____________
Chicago (US):
Runway conditions at Chicago's Midway International Airport were reported to be "fair to poor" by a pilot who landed just minutes ahead of a Southwest Airlines jet that slid off the landing strip and slammed into vehicles on a road Thursday night, officials said yesterday.
The accident killed 6-year-old Joshua Woods of Indiana.
He was riding in the back seat of his family's Pontiac sedan, singing along with a Bruce Springsteen Christmas song, when the 737 crashed through a chain-link fence and hit the car.
Two passengers on the 737, which flew to Chicago from Baltimore-Washington International Airport, suffered minor injuries, a Southwest spokesman said, and their names were not released.Safety experts said the crash of Southwest Flight 1248 bore a strong resemblance to an August accident in Toronto when an Air France plane overshot a runway during a thunderstorm and landed in a ditch, bursting into flames.
_______________
See Also:
Aircraft overruns a long-standing concern
Chicago crash plane fairly new, no known problems
NTSB investigates Southwest plane skid
_______________
Experts said investigators are likely to focus on Midway's runway conditions at the time of the accident and whether the plane touched down too far down the runway, as well as looking at other related weather conditions. The airport received 7.7 inches of snow Thursday afternoon and evening, which fell at a rate of one inch per hour. "Snow was definitely having a significant impact on both airports' operations," said Wendy Abrams, spokeswoman for Chicago Airport System, which operates both airports.
Officials said that three planes had landed on the same runway -- 31C -- in the 30 minutes before Flight 1248: a 757, a 737 and a Gulfstream G4. The pilots of the first two planes reported that the first two-thirds of the runway were clear but that braking on the last third of the runway was "fair to poor" because of the snow.
Runway 31C is relatively short for commercial airplane use and cannot accommodate an aircraft larger than a 757. The runway is shorter than those at Reagan National Airport.
"With 6,500 feet, you don't have a lot of margin of error," said Greg Feith, a former National Transportation Safety Board accident investigator. He said investigators will want to know where the plane touched down. "You want that plane down in the first third -- or in the 'touchdown zone' -- of the runway. If you land anywhere out of that zone, you increase overrun potential," he said.
Midway experienced a similar crash exactly 33 years earlier -- Dec. 8, 1972. A United Airlines 737 skidded off a runway and crashed into several homes beyond the airport's fences, killing 43 of 61 passengers and two people on the ground.
In 2000, a Southwest jet overshot a runway in Burbank, Calif., and stopped feet from a gas station. No one was killed, and the accident was blamed on pilot error.
