More on Southwest 2294

Hole in Southwest 2294 - 7/13/09 (AP Photo/The Charleston Gazette, Chris Dorst)

We’ve had mixed feelings in the past about reporting on airline incidents. We were tempted to take the high road and say nothing until the NTSB issued a report, which is months later. We decided that since it is news, and people are interested, we would try to lay out the best information we had without making any specific judgments or speculations, as we feel we are not qualified to do so(we’re not investigators or mechanics).

The Southwest incident produced a issue for us that was questioned on Twitter. We pointed out Southwest had been involved in a incident two years ago with the FAA over fuselage inspections. We saw this as background, as we felt it would come up at some point, not a speculation, specifically. We want to acknowledge to anyone who thought otherwise this was not our intent. We have noticed the news reports brought up the same issue. We will continue to try to conduct our reporting in a fair manner.

We are fond of Southwest, which makes any negative about them difficult for us to write. We think they handled this incident beautifully.
If a measure of an airline is how it handles difficult situations, Southwest deserves a great deal of credit.

Credit: John Rhodes

The plane landed normally, and passengers deplaned normally. Passengers off the flight were treated to pizza, provided free of charge by a local pizza place. A replacement plane landed at 8:30, only 2 hours after they arrived, to take them the rest of the way to Baltimore, only four hours late. Few other airlines would do this so efficiently.

The Cranky Flier provided us with some specifics about the airplane in question. The plane was delivered brand new to the airline on June 29th, 1994. He was even on that aircraft once. Southwest overnight inspected all 181 of the 737-300 aircraft. It has a total of 544 737s in its fleet. In a walk-around visual inspection, they found no visible cracks in any of these aircraft. We are certain if additional checks are warranted, they will be performed as soon as more information is available.

This year has bee a year of notable incidents. May the rest of the year be uneventful.