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

+1 landed a few times at PVD runway 5 on southwest flights never slammed down

The funny thing here is you blabbering on about the aluminum airframe of the airplane, when this is clearly a corrosion issue associated with the rivet joints, not the aluminum chosen for the frame. Most likely it's a 2024 aluminum alloy. What probably occured, due to thermal expansion, was a plastic deformation in the rivet joints, which led to grain boundary growth in the critical areas of the rivet where creep has set in over time.source of info: I'm a materials engineer

Now you've piqued my interest!If you treat the plane as balanced on a single center, bottom support. The nose and the tail, as well as the crest, are unrestrained in their expansion, be it due to pressure or temperature. An unrestrained thermal expansion creates negligible stress. You could argue that the individual plates are over restrained, but the hoop stress is constant where there's no change in diameter or thickness and I doubt there's a temperature gradient in very thin, air cooled aluminum skin this far removed from the leading edge. But I've never bellied up to a B737 flying at Mach 0.8. Maybe it is!And does aluminum creep at such low temps? ASME doesn't think creep governs in 2024 until above 200F. That would mean water would be boiling off the skin of these jets. Maybe it does? I just haven't seen it.Finally, check my understanding, but grain boundary growth would mean more grain area, i.e. a higher grain number, a finer structure, and more likely a plastic failure. As opposed to grain growth which would lead to a brittle fracture more commonly. Right? I normalize A105 and heat treat welds for cold systems to avoid brittle failure. I hope I haven't been wasting my money all along, but would love to be proven wrong!All that said... I don't have a better theory about what happened to this plane. Moreover, my interpretation of the code of ethics to which engineers prescribe, prevents them from making any such conjectures.Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Ah8WTL2i8P.S. Mine's bigger than yours. [tongue in cheek!]

Would your background include Tuffs and MIT by any chance? Because I'm picking up some thinly veiled humor with this post.My name IS Ken Carlin (-damn it), and I approve of the below pasted post. :(

Now you've piqued my interest!If you treat the plane as balanced on a single center, bottom support. The nose and the tail, as well as the crest, are unrestrained in their expansion, be it due to pressure or temperature. An unrestrained thermal expansion creates negligible stress. You could argue that the individual plates are over restrained, but the hoop stress is constant where there's no change in diameter or thickness and I doubt there's a temperature gradient in very thin, air cooled aluminum skin this far removed from the leading edge. But I've never bellied up to a B737 flying at Mach 0.8. Maybe it is!And does aluminum creep at such low temps? ASME doesn't think creep governs in 2024 until above 200F. That would mean water would be boiling off the skin of these jets. Maybe it does? I just haven't seen it.Finally, check my understanding, but grain boundary growth would mean more grain area, i.e. a higher grain number, a finer structure, and more likely a plastic failure. As opposed to grain growth which would lead to a brittle fracture more commonly. Right? I normalize A105 and heat treat welds for cold systems to avoid brittle failure. I hope I haven't been wasting my money all along, but would love to be proven wrong!All that said... I don't have a better theory about what happened to this plane. Moreover, my interpretation of the code of ethics to which engineers prescribe, prevents them from making any such conjectures.Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Ah8WTL2i8P.S. Mine's bigger than yours. [tongue in cheek!]

This is going to be the next FSPassengers scenario. I wonder what the pilots passenger satisfaction rating would be after the flight?

For anyone still thinking SWA was at fault here, Boeing themselves have taken responsibility and admitted mistakes in how they calculated the cycles before inspection time for the 737 classics:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576244782850491122.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

For anyone still thinking SWA was at fault here, Boeing themselves have taken responsibility and admitted mistakes in how they calculated the cycles before inspection time for the 737 classics:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576244782850491122.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Boeing's credibility/accountability is questionable -see that $4,000,000,000.00invisible fence? .....No one else has either.-Ken Carlin