Southwest Airlines Flight 345 Captain Interview

[BIGSKY 316]

""Regarding something that could have prevented the accident from occurring, she thought the big
issue was the culture. She did not think the line pilots were against having the culture changed
but there was no leadership to support the change. She hesitated in the cockpit and she wondered
if the FO was going to turn her in to her chief pilot. That threat would be in her mind until she
could figure out who her FO was. She felt that the accident FO was quiet and unresponsive and
pilots like that were the result of confusion over rumors and not retaliation against her. As an
assertive female captain, “I'm the b word”. An assertive male captain was a “good captain."

 

http://dms.ntsb.gov/public%2F55000-55499%2F55193%2F561671.pdf

[KevinAu 441]

Overthinking people make for 'nervous nellies' in the cockpit. Nervous nellies often take irrational and inappropriate actions. She was nervous about landing at LGA to begin with. That it was somebody else's leg added to her nervousness. When he drifted slightly high on short final, it took her over the edge. She then took the power to idle on him at too high an altitude and caused the plane to crash.

[tf51d 284]

I think a contributing factor is that ATC should not have assigned that runway, if there was that much of a tailwind that was enough to push the aircraft into the runway. There is a reason it's preferable for planes to land into the wind. The Captain though noting those conditions should have aborted the approach.

[KevinAu 441]

That's just how atc is. Changing the runways around in new york city apparentlyrequires a bit of effort on their part since what each airport does affects what the other two do. They will keep a runway going until a couple of people go around for excessive tailwinds. And just as atc was given a pass in the Asiana crash, the part they played in using a downwind runway as the active will likely be glossed over in this report as well by the ntsb.