According to reports, the Southwest Airlines plane was forced to abort the landing due to weather conditions and came close to crashing into the ocean off the coast of Hawaii.
During a flight in April, a Boeing 737 Max 8 suddenly plummeted hundreds of feet within seconds, but the crew managed to pull the plane out at the last moment to avoid a fatal crash, according to a memo Southwest sent to pilots last week. Obtained by Bloomberg.
The airline said no one on board the flight was injured.
Southwest Airlines Flight 2786 aborted landing due to bad weather and fell to within 400 feet of the water while flying at an altitude of about 1,000 feet, according to data from flight tracking website ADS-B Exchange.
It fell at an astounding rate of more than 4,000 feet per second, according to Bloomberg.
The panicked pilot began to climb as fast as he could.
“The pilot was using the engines to raise and lower the nose and it was very close to being out of control. It was very dangerous,” Kit Darby, a former commercial airline pilot and flight instructor, told the outlet. “It must have felt like being on a roller coaster.”
The plane was taking off for a short flight from Honolulu to Lihue Airport, and the captain appointed the “new” first officer as captain, based on the duration of the flight, according to the memo.
As the plane approached the airport, weather conditions obscured visibility of the runway, so the pilot decided to abort the landing.
The co-pilot “inadvertently” pushed the controls forward while monitoring changing thrust levels based on the plane’s autothrottle, according to the memo.
To compensate, the pilot slowed down, causing the plane to plummet and sound an alarm.
According to the memo, the captain instructed the first officer to increase thrust, which resulted in the plane climbing “aggressively” at a speed of 8,500 feet per minute.
The plane returned to Honolulu and landed safely.
Darby told Bloomberg that the plane would gradually descend at a rate of roughly 1,500 to 2,000 feet per minute as it approached its destination, reaching an altitude of 800 feet once it was within five miles of the airport.
When asked about the incident, Southwest Airlines said in a statement to The Washington Post that “nothing is more important to Southwest Airlines than safety.”
“We are always committed to continuous improvement and have responded appropriately to this incident through our robust safety management system,” the spokesperson added.
Southwest concluded that improving communication among flight attendants was critical, according to the memo, and the airline pledged to review industry and internal data to determine whether procedures and training needed to be updated.
The FAA is investigating the incident, according to Bloomberg.
The horrific accident came just a month after a Singapore Airlines Boeing plane encountered severe turbulence on Tuesday, crashing to an altitude of 6,000 feet (about 1,800 meters), killing a 73-year-old British man when an unbelted passenger hit an overhead luggage rack.
A further 30 passengers were injured on May 21 on a Boeing 777 flying from London to Singapore.
“A sudden change in gravity likely caused unbelted passengers to become airborne,” the Singapore Transport Safety Investigation Bureau reported, adding, “A second change likely caused them to strike the ground again.”
