First Officer From Southwest Wrong-Airport Flight Retires | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-06.23.25

Airborne-NextGen-06.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Wed, Apr 16, 2014

First Officer From Southwest Wrong-Airport Flight Retires

Captain Is Back On Flying Status

The pilot serving as first officer on the Southwest Flight that landed at the wrong airport in Branson, MO has retired, according to the airline, while the captain of the flight has been returned to flying status.

The Associated Press reports that both had been placed on paid leave following the incident, which saw them land their Boeing 737 at Clark Airport (KPLK) rather than Branson Airport (KBBG) in January. The two airports are about seven miles apart. KPLK has a much shorter runway than does KBBG.

No one was injured in the incident.

Southwest declined to identify the pilots, but said both had been flying for the airline for at least 12 years.

The pilots told the NTSB that they had mistaken the bright lights lining the runway at the smaller airport for the larger one.

The NTSB's preliminary report said that "the flight had been cleared to land on runway 14 at KBBG, which was 7,140 feet long, however, landed on runway 12 at KPLK, which was 3,738 feet long. There were no injuries to the 124 passengers and 7 crewmembers and the aircraft was not damaged. The aircraft was being operated under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Chicago Midway International Airport (KMDW), Chicago, Illinois. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time."

FMI: www.ntsb.gov, www.southwest.com

Advertisement

More News

NTSB Final Report: Rutan Long-EZ

He Attempted To Restart The Engine Three Times. On The Third Restart Attempt, He Noticed That Flames Were Coming Out From The Right Wing Near The Fuel Cap Analysis: The pilot repor>[...]

ANN FAQ: Turn On Post Notifications

Make Sure You NEVER Miss A New Story From Aero-News Network Do you ever feel like you never see posts from a certain person or page on Facebook or Instagram? Here’s how you c>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: ICAS Perspectives - Advice for New Air Show Performers

From 2009 (YouTube Edition): Leading Air Show Performers Give Their Best Advice for Newcomers On December 6th through December 9th, the Paris Las Vegas Hotel hosted over 1,500 air >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (06.28.25)

Aero Linx: NASA ASRS ASRS captures confidential reports, analyzes the resulting aviation safety data, and disseminates vital information to the aviation community. The ASRS is an i>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (06.28.25)

“For our inaugural Pylon Racing Seminar in Roswell, we were thrilled to certify 60 pilots across our six closed-course pylon race classes. Not only did this year’s PRS >[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC