Southwest Boeing 737 emergency landing in West Viginia!

Aviation Aviation News
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A Southwest Airlines jet made an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday after a football-sized hole in its fuselage caused the cabin to depressurize, an airline spokeswoman said.

Southwest Flight 2294 made an emergency landing at Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday.

There were no injuries aboard the Boeing 737, which was traveling at about 30,000 feet when the problem occurred, Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told CNN.

The sudden drop in cabin pressure caused the jet’s oxygen masks to deploy.

Southwest Flight 2294 was en route from Nashville, Tennessee, to Baltimore, Maryland, with 126 passengers and a crew of five aboard, McInnis said.

It landed at 6:07 p.m. after the crew reported a football-sized hole in the middle of the cabin near the top of the aircraft, McInnis said.

What caused the damage to the jet had not been determined, she said. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident, FAA spokeswoman Holly Baker said.

Southwest dispatched a replacement aircraft to take passengers on to Baltimore.

Charleston airport spokesman Brian Belcher said a local pizzeria provided food for the passengers as they waited.

The damaged jet will remain on the ground there until federal inspectors can examine it, he said

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Just exactly what kind of pizza?

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Diverted flight: flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA2 … /KBNA/KCRW
Original flight: flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA2 … /KBNA/KBWI

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I read a news story a minute ago which stated that Southwest would be inspecting all of their 737-300 equipment during the overnight hours last night. The article claimed that service today would not be affected, assuming the aircraft had no defects or mechanical issues that would prevent them from flying. Like a hole in the top.

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I am curious how they would be able to inspect all of their 737-300 for strutural failure issues overnight? Unless they only have a few 300 series, I wouldn’t use the words inspection and overnight in the same sentence.

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I understand where you’re going with this, and I thought the same thing. The information in my post came directly from the news article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090714/ap_on_re_us/us_emergency_landing

I was either mistaken about “overnight,” or perhaps it has been removed from the article, which was revised or updated after I read it.

The article says that about one third of the Southwest fleet is comprised of the Boeing 737-300. Wikipedia puts the actual number of 733’s at 181 aircraft.

I found this quote from the same article referenced above:
“I’d say it’s not routine,” Southwest Airlines Co. spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said in describing what happened.

Let’s hope it isn’t.

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I hope the “routine” comment was meant towards “inspection” and not planes comming apart in flight.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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Unlike other major carriers, Southwest does not schedule any overnight flights. With the possible exception of charters and the odd flight or two that is running late, all of their aircraft are on the ground by 01:00. It would be very possible for them to inspect all of their -300s during this time.

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Here’s the official scoop from Southwest Airlines (edited slightly to allow the posting to get by the debug error)

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES INFORMATION REGARDING FLIGHT 2294

Scheduled Nashville-Baltimore Flight Diverts to West Virginia

DALLAS, TX -July 13, 2009 Southwest Airlines confirms Flight 2294, the 4:05 pm Eastern scheduled departure from Nashville to Baltimore/Washington diverted to Yeager Airport in Charleston, W. Va at approximately 5:10 pm Eastern today after a cabin depressurization. All 126 passengers and crew of five onboard landed safely and are awaiting a replacement aircraft in Charleston that will take them to Baltimore/Washington International Airport later this evening.

The aircraft cabin depressurized approximately 30 minutes into the flight, activating the passengers’ onboard oxygen masks throughout the cabin. Medical personnel in Charleston assessed passengers and no injuries are reported. Southwest Airlines is sending its maintenance personnel to Charleston to assess the aircraft, and the airline will work with the NTSB to determine the cause of the depressurization. According to initial crew reports, the depressurization appears to be related to a small-sized hole located approximately mid-cabin, near the top of the aircraft.

There is no responsible way to speculate as to a cause at this point. We have safety procedures in place, and they were followed in this instance to get all passengers and crew safely on the ground. Reports we have are that our passengers were calm and that our Pilots and Flight Attendants did a great job getting the aircraft on the ground safely.

In an abundance of caution, we have initiatied an inspection of all 737-300s tonight. We expect only minimal impact to tomorrow’s schedule until all of those inspections are complete.

***UPDATE: Inspections of all of our 737-300’s were completed last night with zero findings. There were minimal delays to our operation this morning due to those inspections (less than 20 flights were delayed about 30 minutes each). We are still working with the NTSB on a cause.

Our BWI Customers diverted to West Va. landed safely in BWI last night via a replacement flight. Customers were in good spirits and very complimentary of the Crew’s efforts. Southwest is refunding the roundtrip fare for these Customers and thanking them for their cooperation and patience.

Source: Southwest Blog

SWA8514 was the flight number used to ferry a 737 from BWI to CRW to pick up the passengers.

SWA2294 from CRW to BWI.

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well, having worked for papa johns, I can see that feeding those pax some pizza is a smart move…could bill it to the adv budget. I guess now maybe SOME folks may consider that…yeah…there just MIGHT be a sudden decompression at altitude. Best keep that pen outa yer mouth, eh?
Im glad all landed ok. As my pilot brother sez…takeoffs are optional, but landings are mandatory. Also…any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

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Figure they’ll ferry the damaged airframe out of CRW (and where to?) or will it be AOG there?

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Probably KBWI…just a guess…IF it does ferry.

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I don’t think they do their heavy maintenance at BWI, though. I was thinking DAL?

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they’ll probably fly a mechanic in or hire a contractor to fix it there. Flying an aircraft with a hole in it is a little too risky.

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That would be the Boeing AOG team… I should have been clearer on the question… would they possibly speed tape the hole and fly it, nap of the earth , to where ever?

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Since everyone in aviation is absolutely honest, especially legacy air carriers then we should take them at their word. If they say all they planes were inspected overnight they must have been. Right…?

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'specially when SWA had an “intimate work around” inspections relationship with some FAA inspectors in the past :wink: I even believe there is a thread out there on this.

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I HOPE you understand I know they would fix the a/c there and THEN ferry it out to be looked at one more time before getting back to rev. service…at least that is in my mind what I was trying to convay 8)

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Well stated Allen!

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NTSB RELEASES PHOTOS OF DAMAGED SECTION OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINES 737 FUSELAGE