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  • 2 Southwest planes forced to turn around in flight.

    WARWICK, R.I. -- Two Southwest Airlines flights left Baltimore Monday night bound for Rhode Island, but it was just the beginning of a back-and-forth odyssey for dozens of passengers.



    This is interesting, Southwest and FAA's statement conflict each others.

    Southwest Statement--One of the planes tried to land in Rhode Island, but when the approach failed, the pilot flew back to Baltimore.

    The control tower at T.F. Green closes at midnight, and a spokeswoman from Southwest Airlines said the airline did request that it remain open.

    "We made the request for both flights for the tower to stay open, and the local tower refused. Once they refused, we had no choice but to return back to Baltimore because we need the guidance of air traffic controllers to land in the weather conditions that were present," spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said.


    FAA Statement--A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said based on control tower recordings, Southwest's version of events is "not true."

    "Southwest made a decision to return to Baltimore after the pilot attempted to make a landing ... [and] missed his approach," spokesman Jim Peters said. "Based on conversations, it was not necessary for the tower to be open when that plane landed."



    While I do trust Southwest Airlines, I do find it disturbing the pilot attempted to land at PVD without the guidance of the ATC there. If what FAA says is true, then WN may have just lied, about trying to land there and they had tried to do an attempted, but missed approach.

    Anyone else know about this?

    Alex
    Stop Searching. Start Traveling. southwest.com

  • #2
    From what I understood the airplanes didn't land just because ATC tower wac closed and therefore the airport was not controlled. That's pretty wierd as I thought that bigger airport have some kind of a "monitoring" - I mean I thought that there always is a person that controls the airspace in the night time and that ht eairport is never left uncontrolled....

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    • #3
      You don't need a tower to be open or even to exist in order to do an instrument approach.
      Van Hoolio's JP.net Photos
      lp.org

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      • #4
        You don't need a tower, sometimes the tower at commerical airports will be closed and pilots will just use a unicom. No reason to turn around.
        sigpic
        http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=170

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        • #5
          Ohhh for petes sakes

          You guys are forgetting a big factor, according to SWA Pilots the weather was horrendous around the northeast area. They did not feel comfortable landing at PVD without the guidance of the ATC, one tried to attempt a landing but had to do a missed approach and just didn't feel like trying again (in others I fkd up bad).

          Besides, WN was doing it in safety, would the passengers want them to land into PVD at night in that type of weather? Don't know why they complaining. Although I admit that approach the first time was a bit disconcerting to me.

          Alex
          Stop Searching. Start Traveling. southwest.com

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by AA_MD-80@STL
            Ohhh for petes sakes

            You guys are forgetting a big factor, according to SWA Pilots the weather was horrendous around the northeast area. They did not feel comfortable landing at PVD without the guidance of the ATC, one tried to attempt a landing but had to do a missed approach and just didn't feel like trying again (in others I fkd up bad).

            Besides, WN was doing it in safety, would the passengers want them to land into PVD at night in that type of weather? Don't know why they complaining. Although I admit that approach the first time was a bit disconcerting to me.

            Alex

            You dont need an airport control tower to land, nor for instrument. The weather wasnt bad. Second, its called a Unicom, if a NW DC-9 can land in Grand Forks without a Tower, then there is no reason why a southwest plane cant land. This "all hotels full" is a load of crap. Absolutely pathetic by southwest. Even worse about the pilots saying because no one is in the tower they cant land. For those pilots, heres my imput is dial in 120.7 give position reports and land the plane. For christ sakes, thats something you first learn when getting your PPL.

            Comment


            • #7
              Probably one of them tried the approach to "feel it out" and if it looked good he was gonna call up to the other guy and let him know how it was. That could be why only one attempted the approach. When he judged it wasn't a safe landing he aborted and could have called up to the other guy to turn around.


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              • #8
                Resorts to a UNICOM after tower is closed... there are scheduled flights that get into PVD after midnight and are times where we get private stuff after midnight. Thats a crock of shit. Southwest probably flew to PVD knowing the weather conditions being the jumpy little asses that they are and once they got there realized... hmmm this wont work, and had to resort back to BWI.

                Edit, you dont need guidance from ATC. Yet over 50% of the WN pilots are probably ex military and they want a controller to call out if they are a hair below or above the glideslope and left or right of course? Called LOC Capture mode on 99.999999% of all Boeing aircraft. There is absolutly no need for air traffic control during these circumstances in my eyes.
                Last edited by ExpressJet145; 2006-05-17, 04:47.
                Ryan Davis
                Admin, FlyerGuide.Net
                www.flyerguide.net

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by chrisburns
                  The weather wasnt bad.
                  The weather was indeed bad there was fog and rain all over, even Ryan said they got over 2 feet of rain. All over the northeast was drenched in heavy rain and such.

                  Alex
                  Stop Searching. Start Traveling. southwest.com

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by AA_MD-80@STL
                    The weather was indeed bad there awas fog and rain all over, even Ryna said they got over 2 feet of rain. All over the northeast was drenched in heavy rain and such.

                    Alex

                    Odd, he just told me it wasnt bad. Either way, ILS approach shouldnt be a problem with that. Thank god WN doesnt ever go to ND, because they would never be able to land in the wind up there.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by chrisburns
                      Thank god WN doesnt ever go to ND, because they would never be able to land in the wind up there.
                      Yeah because ND is the only place in the U.S. with wicked winds.
                      Follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/flyingphotog

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                      • #12
                        Does southwest ever land without an operating control tower?

                        Could be in their specifications that they aren't allowed to. Who knows what happens to that approach there when the tower closes. Just because Northwest does it doesn't mean southwest can. Its all dependent on their specs.
                        Their is alot of shit that we do that the airlines don't. I'm not that familiar with southwest procedures or 121 ops. And unless any of you are....
                        Try to catch me flyin dirty...

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by mikecweb
                          Does southwest ever land without an operating control tower?
                          I dunno the answer to that, but if something had gotten f'ed up again like at MDW all the "I told you so's" would be marching out blaming WN's "Cowboy Pilots." Better to play safe than sorry in this case.
                          Follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/flyingphotog

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by PT737SWA
                            I dunno the answer to that, but if something had gotten f'ed up again like at MDW all the "I told you so's" would be marching out blaming WN's "Cowboy Pilots." Better to play safe than sorry in this case.
                            very true. But that being said, airlines land at uncontrolled fields all the time. There's a 5 something AM flight out of GFK, and the tower here doesn't open until 6. I'm gonna agree with Mike and guess that its a company limitation. Without the tower, the only part that would be missing from normal operations is the whole "cleared to land" and the tower making sure nobody is on the runway...which, if the weather was really that bad, they might not have been able to see anyway.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by AA_MD-80@STL
                              The weather was indeed bad there was fog and rain all over, even Ryan said they got over 2 feet of rain. All over the northeast was drenched in heavy rain and such.

                              Alex
                              The weather in NE has been nothing but rain, fog, and in some cases ice. Today was the first day it cleared up here in NY but I still think NE was still drenched in rain.

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