SWA flight continues for 75 minutes after rapid depresurization!!

[V1Cutt]

Zzzzzzzzzz ............

 

[canyonblue737]

So you're putzing along at 10,000 to 14,000 feet and did everything that your QRH and dispatch told you to do. You think to yourself, "wow, I'm an awesome SWA pilot now; my chief pilot is gonna be proud of me."

Then twenty minutes from destination, you begin to smell something. Smells like smoke and not the mexican burito that you had for lunch. Something is definetly burning, but what? Smells electrical. Then you begin to see smoke.

You look up and see how much oxygen you have left. Its significantly depleted from your emergency descent, not to mention that you had a jumpseater on board who used a lot of your O2 as well. It doesn't look like there's enough O2 for 20 more minutes of flying. Suddenly you realize that the 130 passengers you have on board have no oxygen because all of their O2 generators have been depleted.

Still want to fly for another 20 minutes so you don't have to inconvenience passengers and make SWA look bad? Ever hear of the accident chain?

You mean that with a smoke/fire issue you think passenger masks are appropriate? Nice PIC work there, think again! Wow, just wow.

The O2 for the pilots can be read off a cockpit guage, they could see if they depleted to much for themselves after the initial descent (which is VERY unlikely considering how much you have... HOURS.)

Also it says in your profile you have flow the FLUF so you should know the Boeing QRH is specific as to which situations are "land at nearest suitable" and which aren't. This is an "aren't."

 

[canyonblue737]

Regardless if the crew was in an emergency situation at the bottom of descent, the crew/company elected to continue for 75 minutes after an emergency event, with the rubber jungle hanging out, and with an important piece of cabin safety equipment expired: the pax O2 system and some of the crew O2 system. (and this of course is based on the information in the article which certainly can be heavily scrutinized.)

The pax O2 system is used for ONLY ONE PURPOSE... providing passengers oxygen at altitudes needing it in the event of a depressurization. Since they descended to a lower altitude and remained there for the remainder of the flight the system has ZERO USE.

Also as a 737 pilot you should know that there are dispatch requirments for cockpit O2. It is HIGHLY unlikely in a 10 minute emergency descent that O2 levels dropped below a normal daily dispatch O2 required level which CAN BE READ ON A COCKPIT GUAGE. I bet they didn't even need to service the cockpit O2 at landing.

Really have no idea where your thoughts are coming from on this issue.

PS: I would have to look but I bet pax O2 is an MEL item in the 37 so that shoots down your "important cabin safety equipment" issue (obviously needing to fly at an appropriate altitude.)

 

[waverunner]

Linecheck you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Now go play Check Airman and give a line check so you won't clutter the boards here with your monday morning quarterbacking nonsense!

 

[Prog 2/2]

The problem was the outflow valve. At FL410 it went to full open. At 14,000 they were able to get it back under control and got the cabin pressure back under control at the normal cabin altitude of 8,000. Even if they hadn't gotten the outflow valve back under control it is safe and legal to fly unpressurized at 10,000.

Okay, fair enough.

Now how about the fuel?

How far into the resv + alt, or just resv, did they burn? All that tooling around at 140 wasn't accounted for in the original dispatch fuel, and MHT sure isn't an ETP destination, right? I don't think you guys carry that much extra around to begin with (I don't think anybody does anymore), so what did they land with?

And, yeah, I know all about burning the resv, that it's a dispatch requirement only, etc.,etc........

But did they consider that MHT (IIRC) is a single suitable runway airport, that someone else's blown tire might have shut down the only game in town, and that BOS and the rest of the airports around aren't as easy to get into as DAL?

Or did the decision to continue on commit them to land at MHT, without enough to go elsewhere?

I'll hold judgment till the facts are out there, but if I were one of the guys in the head shed I'd sure have some questions about this one.

 

[SWA/FO]

Probably the 80 - 100 K tailwind from LAS provided plenty extra of fuel.....

 

[GuppyWN]

What about fuel? I thought even though the FMC shows 300 lbs. on arrival that we'd "give 'er a shot" cause we're WN.

Gup

 

[waverunner]

What if ..... what if ...... what if.??? what if.... what if??? what if.... what if... what if.... what if???? what if.... what if ... what if the crew just lands at an airport that is familiar to them while having plenty of fuel remaining with a cabin that is controllable at a lower altitude.

 

[AA717driver]

Difference in corporate culture, I guess. Carry on.TC

 

[waverunner]

guess so.