- Reaction score
- 1,680
On the morning of Jan. 26, as two Alaska Airlines flights from Seattle to Hawaii lifted off six minutes apart, the pilots each felt a slight bump and the flight attendants at the back of the cabin heard a scraping noise.
As the noses of both Boeing 737s lifted skyward on takeoff, their tails had scraped the runway.
Both planes circled back immediately and landed again at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Tail strikes happen occasionally in aviation, but two in quick succession was not normal.
Bret Peyton, Alaska’s on-duty director of operations, immediately ordered no more planes were to take off across the airline’s network. All Alaska flights not already airborne were stopped nationwide.
“At that point, two in a row like that, that’s when I said, ‘No, we’re done,'” said Peyton. “That’s when I stopped things.”
For Peyton, who was an Air Force lieutenant colonel, that decisive call was a heart-racing moment. But few travelers, apart from the passengers aboard the two Hawaii flights who had to wait several hours to continue their journey, would have noticed anything amiss.
The stoppage lasted just 22 minutes.
Alaska’s flight operations staff quickly realized that a software bug was sending bad takeoff weight data to its crews. They immediately figured out a workaround and normal flying resumed.
www.seattletimes.com
As the noses of both Boeing 737s lifted skyward on takeoff, their tails had scraped the runway.
Both planes circled back immediately and landed again at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Tail strikes happen occasionally in aviation, but two in quick succession was not normal.
Bret Peyton, Alaska’s on-duty director of operations, immediately ordered no more planes were to take off across the airline’s network. All Alaska flights not already airborne were stopped nationwide.
“At that point, two in a row like that, that’s when I said, ‘No, we’re done,'” said Peyton. “That’s when I stopped things.”
For Peyton, who was an Air Force lieutenant colonel, that decisive call was a heart-racing moment. But few travelers, apart from the passengers aboard the two Hawaii flights who had to wait several hours to continue their journey, would have noticed anything amiss.
The stoppage lasted just 22 minutes.
Alaska’s flight operations staff quickly realized that a software bug was sending bad takeoff weight data to its crews. They immediately figured out a workaround and normal flying resumed.
After Alaska Airlines planes bump runway, a scramble to ‘pull the plug’
The tails of two Alaska Airlines flights on Jan. 26 struck the runway, the result of bad automated data. The mishaps point to the need for more vigilance by pilots.
www.seattletimes.com
