FlexJet - SWA Runway Incursion MDW 2/25/2025

midwestpa24 said:
One thing pointed out on another board, there are no hold short markings on Runway 4L at either Runway 31L or 31C. Still doesn't absolve the Flexjet crew, but is a contributing factor.

Using 4L as a taxiway honestly seems like poor procedure, lack of these markings for one. The FAA in Airport Design discourages taxiway crosses near the "high speed" portion of the runway, approximately the center third or half. There isn't a parallel to 4L probably for that reason, so ATC just uses the runway.

Like the DC crash, normalization of deviation. If they had only made Flexjet follow the taxiway system perhaps this could have been avoided. Fortunately this time the SWA crew was on their game and went around. Watching it again it doesn't appear their gear ever touched.
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Yeah. But there is a big fat white runway edge line that crosses 4L. He had been instructed to hold short of a runway and then crossed the big fat white line. There are runway marking issues here though. How far back of that line should you hold? I think someone may already be opening some cans of paint getting ready to deal with this.
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah. But there is a big fat white runway edge line that crosses 4L. He had been instructed to hold short of a runway and then crossed the big fat white line. There are runway marking issues here though. How far back of that line should you hold? I think someone may already be opening some cans of paint getting ready to deal with this.
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How far back? Certainly not fully on the other side of it.

Controller was on top of it and saw this coming. Did Southwest start the go around before or after he called for it?
 
FPK1 said:
Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) remains one of the most dangerous airports in the United States. This is due to its complex runways, busy location, and history of safety incidents...
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History doesn't cause accidents, it might be evidence of accidents, but it isn't the cause.

The runways aren't that complex. There's two parallels going NE-SW and two roughly perpendicular. What is problematic is that it's tightly crammed into the middle of Chicago and space for everything (runways, taxiways, parking, etc...) is all at a premium. Of course, a lot of the problem is the corrupt politics in the city that got rid of the prime GA reliever.
 
This is called expectation bias. the controller was imprecise the first time, and confused 31L with 31C; the pilot got the readback incorrect the first time, was corrected, got the readback right the second time but crossing 31 was what he expected. This about human cognition and data processing.
 
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The live audio I heard had ATC stepped on when yelling at 560 to holdshort. They likely didn't hear that transmission (when just about to cross onto 31C).

I could tell what he said because I read the transcript here. In the live playback of ground only - atc was stepped on.

In that same live feed that then played tower, SWA went around. Controller didn't seem to tell them to go around. CT acknowledged and gave a climb and maybe turn but never told them to go around.
 
MauleSkinner said:
if it was expectation bias as Bruce indicated, Foreflight would have also had to tell them to stop in order to make a difference.
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Yes it would have, but do you think the crew was occupied with other tasks, too.... Add foreflight and you have total lack of any human processing power left for situational awareness.....
 
Given this is Chicago in February (where we see the sun w/clear skies 2-3 days during the month if we're lucky), this was a miracle. If there was poor visibility we'd be reading about a disaster. The Eyeball Mk1 may not be glamorous but it saved the day. Kudos to the SWA pilots.
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
The live audio I heard had ATC stepped on when yelling at 560 to holdshort. They likely didn't hear that transmission (when just about to cross onto 31C).

I could tell what he said because I read the transcript here. In the live playback of ground only - atc was stepped on.

In that same live feed that then played tower, SWA went around. Controller didn't seem to tell them to go around. CT acknowledged and gave a climb and maybe turn but never told them to go around.
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I made that transcript by listening to the LiveATC files. I had put it into Audition so I could listen to it repeatedly. Admittedly, stepped on transmissions are going to sound different at each receiver so we don't know if FlexJet heard the stepped on one or not.

I suspect that tower was "uh, yeah" because even if they weren't looking at the runway, they did when they heard the "on the go" called. It's also quite possible local heard the ground controller screaming at this point.
 
midwestpa24 said:
One thing pointed out on another board, there are no hold short markings on Runway 4L at either Runway 31L or 31C. Still doesn't absolve the Flexjet crew, but is a contributing factor....
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Wait...what?! They still have it that way? Yikes!!
 
Daleandee said:
At least one plane had windows that were working ...
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That's what I found most astounding.
All the right seater had to do was look out the window to see the SWA barreling towards them. I mean, "look both ways" is something we're taught as toddlers; it's instinctive for me; road, sidewalk, or runway.
 
tobnpr said:
That's what I found most astounding.
All the right seater had to do was look out the window to see the SWA barreling towards them. I mean, "look both ways" is something we're taught as toddlers; it's instinctive for me; road, sidewalk, or runway.
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Humans are weird, though. Thinking you have clearance to cross can lead you to not see an airplane - Just like how people driving cars are looking for cars at an intersection and they pull out and hit the motorcycle that they completely missed because they weren't looking for it.

Complacency can be added in with that. If you don't see an airplane the first 100 times, do you look as thoroughly on the 101st?

Not to make excuses for Flexjet, they definitely screwed up, but as with most aviation accidents, "pilot error" is only a tiny part of the story. WHY did a qualified pilot make the error? That's where we can really learn.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Humans are weird, though. Thinking you have clearance to cross can lead you to not see an airplane - Just like how people driving cars are looking for cars at an intersection and they pull out and hit the motorcycle that they completely missed because they weren't looking for it.
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It is amazing what you don't see when looking for what you expect to see ...
 
What do you thing the swa CVR would have? They had very little time. I presume they were not hearing the ground frequency (with the readback flubs).
“heyhesnotstoppingGOROUNDGOROUND!”
truly curious if they noticed him anytime before deep into the flare.
 
Ugh. Lots of altruism [DRAT, "idealism" is the ism I meant} isms goin' on in here. Well, let me say how it's happened to me twice.

Back when I was a CFI building time hopping on passenger requested "two pilot" flights in order to build multi time while I worked the radios (ok back then — I think), I went on a trip to DTW on an insanely low IFR day. This was before CRM, cell phones and Sully. We broke out at minimums for 21R and had to taxi to Butler from the furthest place on the airport. Of course, I wasn't familiar with the airport, but the PIC was, so he said. So, when we touched down, the passengers began applauding. As we taxied, they started to ask how we could find the runway in all this fog. Well, even I could see the PIC ought to be paying attention to the taxi route rather than talk to passengers, so I took it upon myself to try to satisfy their curiosity. Then, I heard the ground controller screaming our N-number to stop immediately. I turned my head back forward just in time to see a DC-9 lower its nose gear and deploy the TRs as it flashed before us in the intersection. We stopped just past the hold short line. The PIC had a lot of splainin' to do, writing letters for about six months. Me? I learned a lot and passed it on to everybody I ever flew with from that day forward.

It doesn't just happen to GA 135 flights, though. Many years later, at MDW, I was a B-727 SO jump-seating to see my honey. I can't remember why I never forgot, if it was the close call or the mean captain who ran his seat all the way back to cramp my toes and discourage me from ever thinking about jump seating a 737 ever again. In my life. But as soon as he firewalled the engines the FO told him to abort the takeoff as the tower canceled takeoff clearance for a landing air carrier on one of the cross runways. That one could've been really bad if in all the rising cockpit noise level the message didn't get through.
 
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Let'sgoflying! said:
What do you thing the swa CVR would have? They had very little time. I presume they were not hearing the ground frequency (with the readback flubs).
“heyhesnotstoppingGOROUNDGOROUND!”
truly curious if they noticed him anytime before deep into the flare.
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I bet it has the PM saying "Go around! Go around!" and the PF saying "Going Around" and then right into "positive rate..." "Gear up". A professional flight crew in a sterile-cockpit situation. And you can see that they had a beautifully executed go-around.

dtuuri said:
Back when I was a CFI building time hopping on passenger requested "two pilot" flights in order to build multi time while I worked the radios (ok back then — I think)
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I think it's still OK. 135.115 says "No pilot in command may allow any person to manipulate the flight controls of an aircraft during flight conducted under this part, nor may any person manipulate the controls during such flight unless that person is..." [qualified and employed by the carrier or the FAA]

I couldn't find "flight controls" specifically defined in the FARs but there are other FAA documents that define them as systems that allow a pilot to control an aircraft's direction, speed, and altitude.

The thing that might make it illegal is if the pilot is supposed to make a particular communication with ATC by regulation or FOM/GOM procedure and has the right seater do it instead. The right seater is officially a passenger regardless of their ratings, so even if they do the thing that's required, if the PIC didn't do it they didn't do it. Just better hope the FAA inspector that happens to be on your ramp/plane that day isn't in a mood to pick nits.
 
bbchien said:
This is called expectation bias. the controller was imprecise the first time, and confused 31L with 31C; the pilot got the readback incorrect the first time, was corrected, got the readback right the second time but crossing 31 was what he expected. This about human cognition and data processing.
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What was imprecise the first time?
 
This is why I think foreign ATC should all speak English.
The SW was not issued a go around, but perhaps they heard the controller instructions for FJ to stop. That could easily have given them a heads up as to what was transpiring.
If those instructions were in Spanish however….
 
Kritchlow said:
This is why I think foreign ATC should all speak English.
The SW was not issued a go around, but perhaps they heard the controller instructions for FJ to stop. That could easily have given them a heads up as to what was transpiring.
If those instructions were in Spanish however….
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SW was on a different frequency than the instruction to stop was broadcast on. They wouldn't have overheard the conversation.

Now, that said, my experience flying for well over a decade in Mexico is that insisting on only English would cause way more problems than it would solve. Even though making it into the cockpit in Mexico is automatically putting a pilot into a financial category of citizens with access to vastly more money and education than most of the population, there are still tons of pilots (probably a majority) that have very limited, or non-existent, English proficiency. Speaking English to them is going to cause far more problems than would be solved by the optimistic assumption that occasionally a problem would be avoided by overhearing someone else's transmission.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
I bet it has the PM saying "Go around! Go around!" and the PF saying "Going Around" and then right into "positive rate..." "Gear up". A professional flight crew in a sterile-cockpit situation.
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I think you are right, although I would allow that even a professional flight crew might have a “&@#!” in there somewhere.
 
RedAndWhiteCitabria said:
Wow that runway crossing is really something.

View attachment 138536
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Yikes, I had actually pulled up the taxi diagram and read the transcript of the taxi instructions. It became pretty apparent from that just how easy of a mistake that would be to make. That image makes it even moreso.

I mean they still should have caught it but I can absolutely see why they didn't.
 
cowman said:
Yikes, I had actually pulled up the taxi diagram and read the transcript of the taxi instructions. It became pretty apparent from that just how easy of a mistake that would be to make. That image makes it even moreso.

I mean they still should have caught it but I can absolutely see why they didn't.
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Heads up - that image is old. There are lines now.
 
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