A Southwest Airlines passenger said he thought he was about to die after seeing his plane come dangerously close to the waters of Old Tampa Bay, a few miles from the airport.
Nancy Allen was aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 425 from Columbus, Ohio to Tampa, Florida on July 14 when the plane descended to less than 200 feet above the water near the Courtney Campbell Causeway.
“I think the first thing that bothered me was how close we were to the ocean. I didn’t know at the time that we were necessarily flying east, but I knew Tampa Bay was too close to us. That was a big red flag for me.” Allen told WTVT.
At its lowest altitude, the Boeing 737 Max 8 was just 150 feet above the water and still four miles from its destination.
According to flight tracking service Flightradar24, planes flying over the area typically fly at altitudes of about 1,225 feet.
A panicked passenger sitting in a window seat during the terrifying flight believed his death was imminent and pulled out his camera to record the incident.
In the video obtained by Fox 13, Allen can be heard from behind the camera saying, “We were just low in the water, then high again, then low again. Oh my god.”
In heart-pounding moments, Allen texted her husband details of the traumatic flight.
“Attempting landing. Suspicious,” Allen wrote.
“Cancelled. Canceled. ” “Very suspicious,” the message read.
“I was literally thinking, I have to let my husband know how I’m going to die today. So I started taking videos to try and understand what was going on.”
Allen wasn’t the only one worried about the low-flying plane, as air traffic controllers had warned pilots of the potential threat.
According to audio obtained by Fox 13 Tampa Bay, a control tower official told the pilot, “Southwest Flight 425, low altitude warning. Please confirm altitude.”
With bad weather approaching, the jet flew through Tampa International Airport and eventually landed in Fort Lauderdale, 200 miles away.
Despite the dramatic flyby over the water, Allen said the flight deck crew didn’t seem overly concerned.
“When the pilot came he said very calmly, ‘We’ve got some gusts of wind and we can’t land. These things happen sometimes and we’re out of gas so we’re going to Fort Lauderdale and get some gas,'” Allen said.
In a simulation of the July 14 flight, Peter Lepack of SIM Center Tampa Bay demonstrated safety measures in place if the plane flies below a certain altitude.
“When the plane is landing it announces, ‘1000, 500, 400, 300, 200…’ so you know your altitude,” Lepak explains. “That said, bad weather can throw you off course and all sorts of things can happen, but when you’re 150 feet above the Courtney Campbell Bridge… it gets a little weirder than you’d think.”
The FAA said it was investigating the low-altitude accident, along with two other incidents involving Southwest Airlines flights earlier this year.
In June, a low altitude warning was issued after a plane was recorded just 525 feet above ground level nine miles from the Oklahoma City airport.
In April, the plane was flying about 400 feet above the ocean near Hawaii when the pilot accidentally pushed the control stick forward, causing the plane to reach its maximum descent rate of about 4,400 feet per minute.
