Southwest Airlines pilots lost 20,000 off days. That’s not the scariest problem
Southwest Airlines pilots lost 20,000 off days. That’s not the scariest problem
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Affected Airlines
The airlines that have spent most of the last year complaining about trouble landing are Southwest Airlines, Southwest Air Lines and Southwest Global.
But Southwest’s problems started earlier this month when scientists discovered a plane that had been plagued by errors of radar and lift control.
The aircraft was found in a field in southwest Louisiana and had gone into a Diridon, just east of Baton Rouge. It had been programmed to take off three times during a 13-day period. The pilots blinked at a screen that said “FOLLOW THE EASIER PLANTS.”
After asking for help, the pilots, who say they were all on the same page, said they had been instructed not to approach any landmarks or canyons.
Under the name “LORD, BINE and GOLF,” the plane was designated as “LORD Red” (LORD was for “Golden Eagle”), and was given its yellow “GOLF” symbol, which means “Sucks.”
“This strange story is nothing but an attack on the American Airlines system,” said Jeffrey B. Turner, a spokesman for the airline.
Control stations at the border with Alabama and Nebraska
About 8 10s of a mile outside of Baton Rouge, two days before the plane was to land in Birmingham, Alabama, the first plane spotted by Southwest has been assigned to a different pilot’s big test.
As the plane goes through a signature regulatory checklist, it’s supposed to reset its handling of fuel. There were several problems with the aircraft’s flight plan, such as the way its engine operated when the plane did not run at full throttle and the boiler cooling.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
“The thing that I think most lags is the way that they’re trying to be smart,” Mr. Rickard said.
The problem was that the flight plan demanded that the plane be restarted three times as quickly to avoid a failure. That can make it difficult to identify and fix problems in the flight plan.
That, too, is a problem that has caused some major problems with the flight plan.
The first attempt, which was routed through the Alaska Railroad, required the plane to pass through a series of aerodrome gates. Mr. Turner, a spokesman for the Alabama state Transportation Agency, said that the process was carried out without the pilots’ knowledge or consent.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you’re not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times’s products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
“They didn’t know how quickly. If it was a minute or two, they just didn’t know what to do,” Mr. Turner said.
The second attempt, which was routed through the Alaska Railroad, was sent back to Alaska, but the plane did not go through passengers before leaving.
“This is just one of those things where you want people to know that it isn’t something that is going to be fixed with this board,” Mr. Turner said.
But officials said the nature of the problems and the subject matter of the pilot’s decided decision to try to fix the problem were not at issue, and the pilot agreed to make some minor adjustments later.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
They were also asked to wait for the plane’s computer to update its approach planning before asking for a new approach.
The pilot had to wait more than 60 minutes before any new approach was scheduled. The plane, Mr. Turner said, will be back in Arizona in October.
🔔ALL TEXT IN THIS POST IS COMPLETELY FAKE AND AI GENERATED🔔
Read more about how it’s done here.
