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Chicago runway too slick at Crash
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
The runway at Chicago's Midway International Airport was much slicker than pilots were led to believe on the snowy December night that a Southwest Airlines jet skidded through a fence and killed a 6-year-old boy, according to a USA TODAY analysis.
Runway 31C was so slippery that it would have been difficult for people to walk on, providing minimal traction for the jet's tires as pilots tried to slow down from a speed of about 150 mph, the analysis of investigative records found.
The accident on Dec. 8 raises national safety implications because it shows that the system of testing slick runways has potentially fatal flaws. Without accurate information about runway conditions, pilots can stumble into danger without warning.
Officials at Midway have said conditions on the runway were "good" when Flight 1248 skidded into a roadway and struck a car, killing Joshua Woods.
Other pilots who landed shortly before the accident reported that conditions on the runway ranged from "good" to "poor" in spots.
But the USA TODAY analysis, based on a physics formula using information released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), shows the conditions were "poor" at best. The computation uses the plane's speed and the distance it traveled on the ground. (Related: Pure runway physics)
The official investigation has reached similar conclusions about how slick the runways were, said two aviation sources familiar with those results.
The physics formula used in the newspaper's analysis was validated by two prominent researchers: Vijay Gupta, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at UCLA, and Mark Drela, an aeronautics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Holy cow, that's a scary ride," said Patrick Veillette, a corporate pilot with a doctorate who has written extensively on aviation-safety issues. "That had to have been a horrible feeling, touching down and having essentially no braking effectiveness at all."
The Federal Aviation Administration says it wants a better way for checking slick runways, but argues it has not found a system that is reliable for all aircraft.
On Dec. 8, the pilots on Flight 1248 from Baltimore to Chicago touched down at 7:14 p.m. in heavy snow.
They assumed the runway was in "fair" condition, based on reports from other pilots radioed to them by air traffic controllers. For reasons that have not been explained, the Boeing 737-700's thrust reversers — which help jets slow down — did not begin operating for 18 seconds. NTSB's investigation is months away from determining a cause for the accident.
Midway used two federally approved machines to measure conditions that night, airport spokeswoman Wendy Abrams said. She declined to offer additional details or to comment on USA TODAY's analysis because of the investigation.
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
The runway at Chicago's Midway International Airport was much slicker than pilots were led to believe on the snowy December night that a Southwest Airlines jet skidded through a fence and killed a 6-year-old boy, according to a USA TODAY analysis.
Runway 31C was so slippery that it would have been difficult for people to walk on, providing minimal traction for the jet's tires as pilots tried to slow down from a speed of about 150 mph, the analysis of investigative records found.
The accident on Dec. 8 raises national safety implications because it shows that the system of testing slick runways has potentially fatal flaws. Without accurate information about runway conditions, pilots can stumble into danger without warning.
Officials at Midway have said conditions on the runway were "good" when Flight 1248 skidded into a roadway and struck a car, killing Joshua Woods.
Other pilots who landed shortly before the accident reported that conditions on the runway ranged from "good" to "poor" in spots.
But the USA TODAY analysis, based on a physics formula using information released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), shows the conditions were "poor" at best. The computation uses the plane's speed and the distance it traveled on the ground. (Related: Pure runway physics)
The official investigation has reached similar conclusions about how slick the runways were, said two aviation sources familiar with those results.
The physics formula used in the newspaper's analysis was validated by two prominent researchers: Vijay Gupta, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at UCLA, and Mark Drela, an aeronautics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Holy cow, that's a scary ride," said Patrick Veillette, a corporate pilot with a doctorate who has written extensively on aviation-safety issues. "That had to have been a horrible feeling, touching down and having essentially no braking effectiveness at all."
The Federal Aviation Administration says it wants a better way for checking slick runways, but argues it has not found a system that is reliable for all aircraft.
On Dec. 8, the pilots on Flight 1248 from Baltimore to Chicago touched down at 7:14 p.m. in heavy snow.
They assumed the runway was in "fair" condition, based on reports from other pilots radioed to them by air traffic controllers. For reasons that have not been explained, the Boeing 737-700's thrust reversers — which help jets slow down — did not begin operating for 18 seconds. NTSB's investigation is months away from determining a cause for the accident.
Midway used two federally approved machines to measure conditions that night, airport spokeswoman Wendy Abrams said. She declined to offer additional details or to comment on USA TODAY's analysis because of the investigation.
