A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 from Portland, Maine to Baltimore reportedly took off from a runway that had been closed on Tuesday of this week – and there was a vehicle on the runway at the time. The incident was first reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
The plane couldn’t be reached – they weren’t responsive on the common traffic advisory frequency – either tuned to the wrong frequency or with an inoperative radio.
From what I can figure from LiveATC, a Southwest flight departed PWM on a closed runway with an ops vehicle on it. This happened before the ATC tower opened for the day.
Nobody at PWM could reach Southwest flight because they seemed to not be on the common radio frequency. https://t.co/KzQfxveluG
— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) June 27, 2024
Ops: "Tower…did you ever get a hold of that Southwest plane once he's airborne or is he still kind of MIA in that regard?"
Tower: "We never talked to the aircraft, we're technically not open there until 0545."
Ops: Unintelligible
Tower: "I'm not either, considering you were…
— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) June 27, 2024
There was a NOTAM that the runway was closed. This plane took off, prior to the runway’s opening and before the airfield’s air traffic control tower began work for the day. Flight 4805 took off at 5:43 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The tower doesn’t open until 5:45 a.m. It appears that proper procedures for such operations were not followed.
Just last week a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Oklahoma City descended all the way down to about 525 feet – when it was still 9 miles from its destination airport. Fortunately air traffic control in that instance received an alert about the plane’s altitude and contacted the pilots, “Southwest 4069, low altitude alert. You good out there?”
What. The. F**k?????
There have been too many close calls this year. The military would do a mandatory grounding until things are sorted out and corrective actions taken. That may be what it takes to get these mistakes under control before we have a major loss of life.
Someone was in a hurry to leave the gate. The first flight out with the assumption no traffic. These Southwest pilots didn’t like to follow a checklist. I guess the size of the airport made the thought it didn’t matter.
100% unconfirmed.
first, when you add this on to the business crisis that WN is in, something is about ready to break. badly. hopefully, people’s lives won’t be lost before someone hits the STOP button.
second, how was JonNYC the first to report this when, you at least, showed a quote from Jason R which Jon replied to? we know that Jon loves to think he knows everything about aviation first but I can assure you he just picked up someone else’s post.
Wow, can’t believe that they couldn’t wait the 2 minutes that they were supposed to. According to the NOTAM, the runway was under nightly maintenance, and was scheduled to open at the same time the Tower opened each day, at 0945 UTC (5:45 am EST). You would think that would be crititical, so that the Tower could confirm that the runway was indeed clear, and could give WN4805 the clearance to depart.
@Tim Dunn: Quote tweets work the other way around. The first tweet in this post is Jason Rabinowitz quoting JonNYC.
SWA has a long history of accidents and incidents resulting from the pilots being in a rush….
JohnW – Furnish proof.
The folks in the Southwest PR department must be exhausted by now.
…. and inhaling whiskey hourly
If this is true about departing before the airport opened, the entire flight crew should be fired including the cabin crew. The pilots obviously, but the cabin crew is supposed to be there for the passengers’ safety and they failed miserably on that. The cabin crew should have known when the airport opened and delayed getting ready enough so that the flight didn’t take off until the airport was open. Further, Southwest Airlines should have not scheduled a flight to take off exactly when the airport opened. Too much of a chance for something like this to happen.
JNS,
the airport wasn’t closed. The tower was closed. Southwest, and most airlines – sometimes operate into airports that never have a tower.
Wow that’s my local airport. I was recently on a flight had had to taxi down the runway which I never enjoy (haha) due to paving.
I don’ think the airport was ever closed.
The tower normally closes during the wee hours of the night…but the airport remains open. Pilots just talk to each other over the radio and coordinate their own traffic separation. How it’s done at all airports without control towers.
With respect to the closed runway, that’s on the aircrew to know by checking proper notices. This is especially important when operating at an airport with the control tower closed.
The comment, however, that the crew was not communicating on the CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency), if true, is a big deal. You must announce your position and intentions on that radio frequency during such operations.
Some facts:
o The airport wasn’t closed. The tower wasn’t yet open.
o The tower frequency (not yet in effect) and the CTAF frequency are the same, so either they had the wrong frequency or a comms issue, or it was early in the morning and it was too much hassle to make CTAF calls for them.
o If tower is closed you can still take off, and if there’s no traffic, it’s usually faster. They should still have made calls for leaving the ramp, entering the runway, leaving the active (runway).
o There is indeed a NOTAM:
PWM 06/168 PWM RWY 11/29 CLSD EXC XNG AND TAX THU FRI MON TUE WED 0230-0945 2406200230-2407310945
That’s KPWM (the airport) NOTAM# 06/143, At PNM runway 11/29 (same pavement, opposite directions) CLOSED except for crossing and taxi. Effective Thursday, Friday, Monday-Wednesday 0230z-0945z. Full date/time is 2024-06-20 0230z – 2024-07-31 0945z.
o They were not up to date on the NOTAMs and are either used to using that runway or had preplanned it as it was closest to the ramp. Not being up to date on the NOTAMS is a violation of FARS §91.103 “…Preflight Action directs pilots to become familiar with all available information concerning a planned flight prior to departure, including NOTAMs.”
o Closed runways are typically marked with big X’s at the ends, but as the runway was clear for taxi and crossing likely wasn’t marked at intermediate instersections. They could have entered at F, E, D, or C “as if to taxi to runway 18/36” without seeing the X at either end.
As for the ops vehicle, it being 5:43, and sunrise being 5:02, may have turned his lights/flashers off.
Just trying to add the facts.
Take off on a closed runway could be deadly, remember Singapore Airlines 747 did that at Taipei years ago and crashed into a construction truck? And ever since that deadly crash, I thought all closed runways must have a big red X and physically Blocked from entering, at both ends of the Closed runways. And now adays, isn’t there any electronic voice command that warns the pilot when they are physically on a closed runway? The idea of planes are allowed to takeoff Without a clear permission from the tower sure is not a safe procedure!
Tim Dunn wishes he was relevant enough to get cited in an article.
JNS. You sir, are an idiot. The cabin crew is in no way responsible for the failings of the flight deck. They would have NO idea what was transpiring outside the cabin.Do everybody a favor and keep your uniformed, derogatory, WRONG, opinions to yourself.
Ehud,
I agree with you on most everything except for the reference to FAR 91.103.. with WN being a 121 operator it would then be a violation of FAR 121.443… which ultimately states similar information just 121 v. p91.
I believe the SW pilot hadn’t seen any coats or doughnuts on the runway and figured it hadn’t been reserved for others.
The only thing more scary than that incident is what the world saw in the Presidential debate last night.
and I WRITE articles that tens of thousands of people read, Roberto. I don’t need to act like I have some privileged information in order for others to pay attention to me.
I was stunned to learn decades ago that major airlines sometimes operate without tower control. United had a flight at the time SFOBOI that got in about 0015, while the tower closed at 0000. I was surprised the insurance companies would let them operate like that.
Tim Dunn, you are a pathetic, irrelevant douche.
It’s interesting that they could even get takeoff numbers for a closed runway. At my company it would result in an ACARS message stating that the runway is NOTAM’d closed, and would not provide takeoff data to program into the FMS.
Hey Jon,
you want attention? we’ll give it to you.
Your self-importance is vastly inflated beyond reality.
I guarantee you that you weren’t the first person to know of this WN incident any more than you know about 90% of the stuff that you claim you unearth – and the other 10% is pirated internal AA documents that you and Gary break your necks to get your hands on.
So what happened? Obviously, they never hit anything so, what was the outcome?
So what has changed to cause these recent incidents? A large percentage of very experienced pilots were mandatory retired due to reaching age 65. I was one of them, at the top of my game I had to go. The replacements might have good flight training, but good judgment can’t be bought and shoved into a new pilot’s head. Good judgement comes from years of experience. Unfortunately when a seasoned pilot retires, all that experience goes down the drain!
Now when you step on the plane and look into the flight deck and see 2 young pilots there, remember what you just read.
I was forced out the door at age 60 because I was too old and was going to kill someone. I’m still doing well 22 years later. No dents, scratches or errors. Unions sure worked for me.
@ Lighting1 Try being forced out at 60 with the union you paid dues to stating they were “neutral.” Perhaps you were not one of the ones who left stickers on senior pilot’s bags that read “Get The F**k Out Of My Seat!” Amazing how fast those last 10, 15 or 20 years in the left seat can go isn’t it?
Is it possible that this wasn’t really that big of a near miss? Sounds like the pilots knew that the runway was closed and about to open. Wondering if they lined up and were holding knowing that the ground personnel were just finishing up and had visual of the vehicle. But the ground crew saw the plane lining up and obviously not taking chances, got the hell out of the way in a hurry.
Given the airline involved here, and their reputation as a bunch of cowboys, I would not be surprised if they were rushing to get out on their preferred runway before the tower opened (as they are totally entitled to do), rather than wait two minutes and have to potentially use a different, to them non-preferred, runway and maybe wait behind other departures. A cunning plan indeed except for the bit where they forgot to check the NOTAMs. (Well, hopefully they did just not check them rather than checking them but then blatantly ignoring them, which would likely be a certificate-revoking event.)