Yea, we'll go around. (We were just lining up on an municipal parking lot.)

"You good bro?" is the LAST THING you want to hear coming from ATC, holy shit.

Was just reading a story about this. When the ATC asks you if you’re good, you’re not good.

Lining up to land at a road. And doing it in FAA's backyard too. Ballsy.

I'd definitely keep an eye on him when he says "field in sight" the second time considering he said he had it in sight the first time. YIKES

Living south of ATL we occasionally have a go-around come over the house at 3000'. Very noticeable. Can't imagine 600ft. He'd be flying under any med-evac helicopters. 🙂

Reminds me of the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 ATC guy saying "How are things coming along out there?" right before the plane went down due to low altitude from lack of situational awareness. Glad this controller caught it and spoke up.

i think they were lined up for a visual on Oklahoma St Highway 4...

That controller is top notch! After he alerted SW, his instructions were clear concise and appropriate.

I have a friend who lives in the area of this, and he physically saw this aircraft and immediately panicked at how low it was compared to all the other traffic. He is checking his home cameras to see if one caught it.

Possibly lined up with Old Oklahoma Hwy 4? Can't imagine it would be lit up like an active runway, but it's directly in line with Rwy 13, and the start of that alignment is exactly 9 miles from the threshold of Rwy 13.

This is why you fly instrument approaches at night, especially into big city airports.

Night time visuals, after a potential long day, is asking for errors. Keep it simple… Full automation, ILS approach, if available, or next lower approach, and then disconnect below 1000’ when close in with the runway clearly in sight . No need to hot dog it in.

This is why you back it up with an available approach ALWAYS

"You good out there?" "We're good. Permission to buzz the tower.".

Got to love the Chuck Yeager-like attitude from the PM even though they were probably getting EGPWS left and right in there.

"Ehhh, Southwest 4069, possible pilot deviation, I have a number for you. Actually, for this deviation, I have multiple numbers for you."

Southwest, field at 1 o'clock, 8 miles, contact ground.

My guess the FAA will be having a chat with this pilot.

Voice recorder will tell the story, if both pilots were distracted or if the FMS was set incorrectly, then the call out read back check was never done.

"Hey so what are ya doing out there, Chief?"

Ahh, my home airport. Glad everything worked out ok. Very familiar with the area and the airfield, yep that is very low especially over residential areas.

When pilot fatigue was mentioned as a possibility on the news about this incident, my first thought went to Colgan 3407. Only time and an investigation (already underway) will tell us exactly what happened here, but thankfully, everyone survived unscathed, and we can hopefully learn something from this incident.

He sounds exhausted, also the fact that he said “going around” 9 miles from the airport tells me that he thought he was lined up with a runway when he was actually lined up with a road.

Wow! honestly, to screw up like that in Realtime and sound so nonchalant is a gift! As a Captain for a major airline about to retire in a little over a year I hope you start to take a more active role in your pilot monitoring responsibly in the future. We know the flying pilot was having a bad day but you too...

The sequel to Air Crash Investigations: Air almost Crash Investigations. Pilot episode is Air Canada 759, 2nd ep is this

The system worked.

Your fast input of straight-up audio & graphics adds to the great credibility of Blancolirio's NO-BS, factual briefings like this. Well done! All of these rest-of-the-story, exacting aviation details make for a reliable, go-to source. I recall the Eastern Flight 401, L-1011 (1972) which slowly descended into the Everglades while the crew was distracted with a faulty gear-down condition light. I believe that the altitude hold they had set was inadvertently bumped "off" while they both leaned in to look at the panel gear lights, and the "C-chord" warning chime (later determined to be easily missed) went unheard by the crew when the big jet eased away from it's (low, holding) altitude. Today, fast access to investigative details and the improvement /corrective changes that follow these events, offered up to all of us in ADs & NTSB initial / final reports -- greatly augmented by what YOU add to the initial reports graphic & audio impact -- make for a valuable learning and refresher source.

Always on the ball Vas. Thank you for this channel. Almost left without giving it a like which is criminal.

That controller probably saved many lives with that low altitude alert.

Thanks for the video🙏

don't know much about how it works, but shoudn't the cockpit hve had low altitude warnings or below glide slope alarms going off long before the ATC called in?

Pilot communicating sounds tired especially for one who just got a low alt alert and a "Are you alright? from ATC.

The approach for runway 13 goes right over my work. It's about 2 miles from the runway threshold, so this guy had to have been insanely low, being at the altitude he was and still with that far to go.

Conveniently enough, FAA is located on the field!

I can’t think of an acceptable excuse or reason they would be flying visual and lurking around almost at the MDA looking for a runway that is actually miles away. There is a RNAV GPS approach for 13 with LP and LNAV guidance; obviously not dialed into anything on the panel. Or was there a localized GPS outage or jamming that affected their positioning?? There are ways to cross check that. They could also have chosen 17 initially - which has several categories of ILS and RNAV approaches. I am not even instrument rated but set up my avionics for applicable instrument approaches as a secondary verification of glideslope guidance and runway verification. Discovery on this one is going to be interesting.

There's a reason a lot of airlines don't do night visuals. There's a reason we load the ILS or available approach (RNAV 13) into the FMS even in CAVU wx.

Sounds like the pilots were half asleep. Surprised ATC didn't ask for a reason.

That sounds like someone who wont remeber the conversation we're having later. How long has that crew been flying?

The pilot seems really tired from the sound of his voice

I believe I remember from a Mentour Pilot video that after a low altitude alert, ATC is supposed to confirm the pilots have the correct QNH or whatever they are using. Is there a reason this wasn't done here?

I wonder if this was their last leg of the day? He sounded really tired (beyond the "I'm a pilot cool voice")

By the sounds of that pilot, ATC woke him up from his nanna nap lol

Looks like he was lining up for I-40, thats very similar in heading to 13. And about the same distance too. Its the first time I heard of that being an issue, but not sure what the METARS. Was this IMC? What I suspect (this did happen once), when Tinker had a B1 emergency land (I was assigned to that crash, no casualties), all orbiting E-3s had to land at Will Rogers, and some of the airliners were messing up their approaches (the guys that did it OFTEN), so when they saw a bunch of AWACS landing on 13, they assumed it was Tinker's 13 runway, and assumed they were much closer to Will Rogers. I wonder if thats something. Thought 500ft AGL is low! Confirmation bias? Complacency bias?

“Yep, we have the airport road and some really bright fast food chain signs in sight.” Hamburger Hill we called it in San Antonio.

Somewhat interesting; the lowest altitude (1800ft) corresponds to the last on the approach chart (FITSO at 1.4nm) and might have been their decision altitude (obv way too early to be that low)

There are those pilots that have lined up on the wrong airport/runway, and those that will. But usually that happens before you make it to the majors.

Maybe the FAA isn’t wrong for publishing tower light outages for 50 ft obstacles 9 miles from the field. Apparently there are airplanes that low that far away from an airport.

Would like to hear more of the ATC prior to giving clearance for the visual app. What was the assigned altitude? The clearance was given at 2600' msl and low altitude was given at 1900' msl. Seems like he was already a bit low when the app clearance was given.

I'm no native English speaker, but why they sound so damn tired?? Can't pinpoint if its an accent thing or they're both really worn out...

Why no query from ATC as to the reason? (I’ve been anxiously awaiting your video on this!) thanks!

This happened to me one time when I came in too low and got an alert but I just pulled up and hit the turbo thrusters and she wasn't too mad.

Isn’t it an FAR that an airline operator must use an electronic glide slope if available? There’s an RNAV approach to this runway.

Back in the day, literally about 80 years ago, a pilot could (and did) get away with flying crazy low on purpose or in error. There was a PAA Captain notorious for buzzing Capitol buildings in Latin America.

Thanks!

I'm glad to see that there is a 3rd pair of eyes at certain airports to remark the pilot and first officer if they go too low too fast on the approach. It even has a handy LA in red next to it on the atc radar scope similar to emr. When an emergency situation is occurring.

I wonder if they even had a ILS or RNAV backup in the box. Company requires it but did they actually put one in? You can do a visual but just have an ILS or RNAV to back it up.

Two pilots and not one looked over to see where they actually were on the map. Both were biased into thinking that the open spot was the runway.

Dang....Even on an LP approach for 13 you should be at 4k foot descending to 2600 foot 4 miles out. 13 doesn't have ILS approach so just looking at what would do on RNAV/LP instrument approach. Def a little low since there are towers on their path that go up to 500 AGL!!!

Surprised ATC didn’t reconfirm altimeter settings.

Hes so fatigued he didnt even get concerned let alone scared about what just happened

Ever since Branson, why is it putting an approach in just for monitoring isn't SOP, regardless of visual conditions?

Thank you very much for picking this up!👍

This is why you always LOAD AN APPROACH even in visual conditions.

Going to be a mis-configuration, or a fatigue issue or both.

Those pilots definitely bought a deal and will go back for training. I’m thinking they dialed the auto pilot accidentally to 400 instead of 4000 and neither pilot checking it during the approach checklist. The controller and his fast STARs software did them a solid.

You know some pilot or aircraft guy on the plane was looking out thinking this is not right

It’s a shame ATC did not give Eastern 401 a low altitude alert but instead, asked “how are things comin’ along out there?”

There seems to have been an incident related to AC20 from SIN to YVR on Jun 20. Fire trucks were deployed and checked the aircraft on arrival. Any ATC audios related to that day?

He might not be great at flying, but he's nailed the perfect radio voice.

As a pilot, a sudden altitude loss on short final is one of the few times I've had butterflies. Windshear. But, this crew's flight? Hard to explain that the low altitude was due to a WX incident. Rather than the pilots failure to monitor, a massive avionics failure, or static port failure. The 737 has 6 static ports per what I could find via an internet search. Odds of clogging all? Low. Looking forward to the final report. Improper altimeter setting is possible, but unlikely. We get the altimeter setting well prior to an approach via ATC and ATIS, and ATC confirms we have the most current ATIS. So, it's a massive brain fart by the pilots If not updating altimeter settings is found to be the cause. I'm sure Southwest is listening to the cockpit recording .... to ensure sterile cockpit rules were followed under 10K feet. This incident might be the 100% on the pilots, or a combination of factors ..including WX, and/or avionics and system failures. My guess- The pilots misprogrammed the approach into the FMS/flight computer, and failed to properly monitor the approach, or an incorrect altimeter setting, or they were flying a visual approach, and didn't back it up with an ILS. Regardless, there was a situational awareness failure, for whatever the reason. Getting a flashback to 1972, when pilots crashed on approach into MIA. Two pilots and engineer were looking at a failed "three green" on the landing gear position indicator , ...while ignoring altitude, as the plane slowly descended and finally crashed into the Everglades.

Hey, it’s OKC. Say it out loud.. it’s Ok, see? 😂😂

Well…at least the FAA didnt have to go far to investigate the flight crew as they are based in Oklahoma…luckily the controller noticed and said something quickly…

What caused this? VFR issues? 9 miles out, 600 feet altitude is not on any normal glide path.

Are these guys not even using their Nav displays anymore?

They were lining up for the highway lol. Thankfully that ATC guy was on his game.

I think the most logical explanation is that they have reported the wrong airport insight. There is KPWA approx 9 miles northwest of KOKC and also has the rwy 13.

Great edit thank you

somebody is in trouble

Is it possible they were using the ILS and ended up on a false glide slope? I know they were on the visual, but at my school most of us have the autopilot fly the approach in since we’re based in a class C. That’s the only thing I can think of, being on a false glide slope and mistaking a highway or something for the runway, making them think they were on glideslope

yikes! great job by the controller, as usual ❤️👏

Juan Browne we need a debrief!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why they wouldn't be cross-checking their visual approach with the RNAV approach for situational awareness. Or at least have the FMS set up to display distance to the runway and use the 3:1 rule. But I also don't understand how they almost nosedived in the Pacific Ocean either. It appears as though some pilots fail to develop a basic level of skill. I believe we are seeing the result of airlines putting HR qualifications ahead of flight skills. There used to be a time where a simulator eval was part of the interview process, but that went away a long time ago. Seems like a mistake to me.

ATC was mumbling and SW pilot spent all his training time practicing his deep big boy pilot voice instead of identifying the active runway.

One wonders what they were lined up with. Bold move CREW taking the visual when you don't have the runway in sight.

I'm absolutely amazed this kind of thing can happen these days. You literally have the most advanced systems guiding you down to the touchdown zone. You don't even have to think, it will guide you down to a landing. Just punch a few buttons and it's up there for you to look at. Even if you hand fly, it still shows you the way.

Any official invetigation what actually happened? Pilot handling the ATC seemed very cool about but as well he sound very tired to me.

Why does OKC approach give the landing clearance instead of tower.

The plane was flying lower than the pilot's voice.

You've got to get pretty low in order to land..... Ted Stryker

Why is approach providing landing clearances? I know there are facilities where TRACON and tower are a combined facility, but doesn't that usually mean that TRACON is still in the basement? I'm surprised that they're doing approach control on the same frequency as local control.

Turns out they had a highway insight......

CFIT in this part of the world would be something 😮

I have been waiting for this one.

Is this the crew that landed the Dreamlifter on the wrong airfield??? Seems like it

Southwest pilots watching: are you guys still setting zero in the altitude window? Curious if that could have been a factor here.

All good. Just a long .03 degree glideslope. What’s the problem

You could hear it in the pilots voice! "I might be looking for a career change!"

People seem obsessed with pilots manually flying in order to improve manual skills, but this is the sort of risk that they may encounter. Pilots don’t need to disconnect all automation and hand fly aircraft, fly visually from the IAF, etc.

I just need to unsubscribe to the other ATC channels. VAS is always first.