And although this clearly is not a bird strike incident... I should point you to the FACT that there is a recorded bird strike that occurred at FL370. Africa, 1972, B747... Cheers!Buddy Morgan

Wow, I did not know that. Come to think of it, I shouldn't be so surprised. I recently heard this story about a dood that took a specially rigged weather type balloon equipped with a large net to to see what was up there. One of the things that stuck in my head was his report of capturing a live termite at some ridiculously high altitude, something like 20,000ft, maybe higher. So there is life up there.-Ken

Allow me to correct you.The "staff" at SWA (including ramp agents, ticket agents, flight attendants, pilots and mechs) are some of the most well paid and well respected workers in the industry. They are far from "abused." SWA is at the top of the best places to work list for many aviation professionals.

The staff at Southwest are the best, there's no doubt about that. They're motivated, very energetic and always seem to be fresh. I'll give Southwest management credit for that.

No, you're wrong. it IS southwest policy to perform this type of landing at ALL airports with runways around 7000 feet or less. Regardless of the MD-11 comments, (which I generated to get attention to the issues the PMDG MD-11 sometimes has with climb rates, which there have been many posts about) I am correct about this. This is the field i Work in, and I know what I'm talking about. Fast turnaround, an extreme amount of cycles + a policy of drop it on the runway = STRESS FATIGUE. Any idiot can figure this out. Just use your brain. The age of the plane makes no difference after the first couple of years. After that its all amount of cycles, and how hard you land the plane over and over. and southwest cycles them faster than a rabbit gets F****** and beats the living daylights out of them when they land.Their entire business model and creed is a direct assault on the structural integrity of their planes! Dont you get it? thats howcome they are so profitable and huge and havnt had the problems financally of other airlines. I seen 3 or 4 southwest planes come and go in the time it took for 1 UNITED flight to arrive and leave! Time is money friend and the short turn around times = more money generated. also = stress fatigue.

:( Couldn't stop laughing on that thing about the rabbit, anyway, after all the posts bashing Tom for what he said, I decided to ask my friend's dad who is a pilot FOR SOUTHWEST. He read the post and said, AND I QUOTE, "Yea, he's 100% right. Thats the exact procedure we follow... Thats been the policy for a while." So it seems Tom was correct! Yay! And in my opinion, he is right, I dont know if he works in that field, but it sounds like it...

The AD identifies "pressurization and manuevering loads" as factors in the metal fatigue...

Bingo! Now we may be on to something...Now it may be the lawyer in me, but I've never heard of landings being classified as maneuvers... For instance, I believe the NTSB has classifications for phases of flight (i.e. takeoff, climb, cruise, decent, maneuvering, and landing). I always considered maneuvers to be turns, steep turns, stalls, etc... The Saturday morning engineer in me sees how there could be torque effects on a fuselage while making steep, abrupt turns... then add pressurization to the mix and the problem becomes that much more complex. Make a couple hundred thousand turns and certainly there will be changes in the metal...Point being, that the AD was not issued because of SWA's allegedly abusive SOP's and the speculation of such SOP's is comical at best. Cheers!Buddy Morgan

Point being, that the AD was not issued because of SWA's allegedly abusive SOP's and the speculation of such SOP's is comical at best. Cheers!Buddy Morgan

Oh stop it. :(

Oh stop it. :(

:biggrin:Buddy Morgan

I've no idea about that. However, that particular aircraft is more than 15 years old, so who knows?

Looking at the age of 747's, I would say that a plane of 15 years old is pretty young?However, I do understand that these ACFT wear out faster due to more t/o and landing.Bert Van Bulck

Everyone is talking about how these planes are going through more cycles so they are more likely to have fatigue cracking and failures. Does no one realize that Boeing mandates inspections by cycles not years? So these planes will be inspected more often, and these inspections are not just walk arounds. they literally take out ALL the interior down to the stringers and skin and inspect everything.

I'm almost positive Boeing and the FAA do in fact have to approve the airlines' SOPs Tom. Someone please correct me if you know for certain that I'm wrong on that, but that has always been my understanding. Boeing themselves create the initial set of procedures that the airlines base their own modifications on.

Ryan, Yes, in order to obtain FAA 14 CFR Part 121 air carrier operation certification numberous SOP's are required.http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/atos/air_carrier/Cheers, BB

I've been on a handful of SWA flights, all within the past 12-18 months. These have been in to MDW, FLL and other airports with approximately 7,000' runways. Never did we "slam" down on to the runway. In fact, more than a ocuple of cases it seemed like we floated a bit and had a very gentle touchdown. Now I don't know anything about SWA SOP's, but either I got lucky finding every single pilot who disobey's them or this business about hard landings with <7,000' runways is bull scat.Eric Szczesniak

Everyone knows that "firm" landings are very often the safest landings. This specially applies to shorter runways or slippery runways. This has nothing to do with Southwest or their SOP - it is part of a well known universal aviation experience. But to somehow imply that Southwest likes hard landings so aircraft is faster on the ground and it helps with a turn-around time borders on idiocy. And you don't need to spin stories here about uncles, friends or brothers in law who allegedly fly for SWA - there are many aviation forums frequented by airline pilots and it is easy to read that theories propagated here by some have zero factual basis.

And you don't need to spin stories here about uncles, friends or brothers in law who allegedly fly for SWA - there are many aviation forums frequented by airline pilots and it is easy to read that theories propagated here by some have zero factual basis.

I hope this isnt targeting my post. I simply said that I have a good friend who flies for SWA (based out of KDAL) who confirmed that there is no such thing as a slam-down policy for runways less than 7k ft. He said that the landing's firmness just depends on the usual factors that contribute to a landing like wind (etc), and that the pilot may make a firm landing either by choice or not depending on the conditions. He also said that (as we all know :() sometimes a firm landing is out of the pilot's control even if he is very experienced.

Last, but not least. Most aviation geeks have seen this video, and it is a classic example of a self-professed 'expert' making a laughing stock of himself. http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GLATzXV6_rcThere's no shame in an experience like this being frightening, but making it out to have been a genuine near-death experience does the aviation industry a disservice and, frankly, makes you look like a princess.

Wow, I'd never seen that video - that is classic. The idea of a passenger thinking that he's doing accurate V speed callouts from the cabin cracks me up - he's saying they aborted past V1 for a tire blowout... not gonna happen. It should be noted too that Boeing themselves intentionally produce very firm landings with their autoland logic. These are most often done in bad weather where you want maximum positive contact for traction. There's no "greaser" attempts in bad weather. I was just remembering too that I flew SWA into KBUR last year, which is a 5800 foot runway. I don't remember anything at all unique about that landing aside from the coolness of taxing right up to the gate immediately off the runway and deplaning via stairs in the back. The two runway overrun accidents SWA has had (one of them was on that very runway at KBUR) had nothing to do with the touchdown itself, but rather where the touchdown was and how fast they were going. I just went and refreshed my memory on both accidents and in both cases the pilots were extremely high and fast and failed to deploy reversers and spoilers on time. They should have gone around - both were cases of "get it in-itis" when the approach was clearly shot. Mandating hard touchdowns would have done nothing in either case.

<br />It's all about your frame of reference. Taking the 'I'm a pilot' exceptions to the rule out of the equation, let's just look at the highly subjective passenger experience.<br /><br />If you've flown, say, a few hundred times as an adult and had a couple of firm landings, then you'll have a fair idea what a hard landing feels like. If you're like a large part of the population for whom flying is a more occasional experience, then a firm touchdown is going to seem a lot worse. Most people severely overestimate the sensations and forces they're feeling in terms of what the aircraft can actually tolerate.<br /><br />Secondly, it's human nature to then retell such events to your friends, or on a flightsim board, or on youtube or whatever. These stories, like the <i>'fish was this big'</i> or <i>'the golf ball was this close to the hole'</i> type of stories, always get a little more dramatic over time. There's well-understood psychology behind this behaviour.<br /><br />Thirdly, and we're addressing the firm landings SOP argument here, I've NEVER heard this allegation from any other corner of the industry, about ANY airline. Like any rumour you hear, one tends to view any such isolated report or allegation as BS until it has been backed up by similar stories. THEN you might do some research to see if there's anything to it... Oh and let's not confuse a hard landing with a deliberate avoidance of floating down the runway. Aircraft do very little deceleration in the flare, so on short runways the aim is to get down safely but 'decisively' and let the brakes, reversers and spoilers do their work.<br /><br />For those out there who would make unfounded statements or allegations on this board, remember one thing: PMDG have extensive contacts within Boeing and (I believe) Southwest Airlines as well. You only stand to come off looking like a fool when the veracity of your statements is called out. Many of the longer term members here will recall the new guy who claimed to be QF 747 aircrew. Little did they know that an ACTUAL QANTAS employee was active on the boards, and his whole ruse was shortlived and very embarrassing for him.<br /><br />Last, but not least. Most aviation geeks have seen this video, and it is a classic example of a self-professed 'expert' making a laughing stock of himself. <br /><br /><a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLATzXV6_rc' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GLATzXV6_rc</a><br /><br />There's no shame in an experience like this being frightening, but making it out to have been a genuine near-death experience does the aviation industry a disservice and, frankly, makes you look like a princess.<br />

<br /><br /><br />Oh my....Never seen this before! How funny!"Turning left at the outer marker..." Ha! Please....

Side bar....Why does youtube let folks post videos taken in the back of the airplane during takeoff and landing (at least within the US)? It is a violation of US federal law to use electronic devices during those phases and of maritime law to disobey crew member instructions.I'm not saying we should throw the guys in jail, but leaving the videos up encourages more videographers to break the law.I know the arguments about it not really impacting avionics and even if it did, they're in CAVU... but that's beside my point.

Wow, I'd never seen that video - that is classic. The idea of a passenger thinking that he's doing accurate V speed callouts from the cabin cracks me up - he's saying they aborted past V1 for a tire blowout... not gonna happen.

My favourite part is the text at the end: "I had the choice to take the next flight out"... "I TOOK IT" Sheesh, melodrama much? :( The shame of it is, he otherwise brilliantly captured a rejected takeoff from the passenger perspective. At the time I first saw it (maybe 2 years ago?) it was one of the only RTO vids online. Pity he had to ruin it with his BS.I've looked around for an incident report without success. I would love to know what caused the RTO, but I'm betting it had nothing to do with the videographer's two theories: a runway incursion would have been widely reported at the time, and the tires would have most likely deflated after the plugs blew out, due to the hot brakes.