All the usual authorities are investigating after the inboard flap on the right wing of a Southwest Boeing 737-800 was damaged possibly by a piece of detached engine cowling on takeoff from Denver International Airport on Sunday. Flight 3695 was headed for Houston Hobby Airport about 8:15 a.m. local time when the incident occurred. Air traffic control recordings obtained by VAS Aviation reveal the pilots were notified by the cabin crew of the issue and subsequently declared an emergency. “Our engines seem to be fine but we are structurally damaged,” one of the pilots reported. The aircraft was carrying 143 people.
The pilots did report minor controllability issues with the aircraft. They advised ATC they were unable to achieve rate one turns and got a clearance for a straight-in approach to a runway with favorable winds. Although the radio exchange was calm, the pilots did convey some urgency by requesting ATC get them on the ground as quickly as possible in case there were structural issues with the airplane. “I do think the sooner we get down on the ground would be better,” said one of the pilots. “Just because of the potential for structural damage.” They ended up landing on Runway 34L and passenger video shows pieces of the cowl departing during the landing roll. The aircraft was towed to the gate and the passengers were on their way to Houston on another plane three hours later.
The aircraft has reportedly been in service since 2017, not exactly a new aircraft. Sounds like this could be a maintenance issue.
As far as 737s go, it’s pretty new given some 737s could be decades old.
Looks just like what unlatched engine cowlings would do on takeoff.
It seems odd to me that in all that (albeit very professional) handling of the Emergency, nobody ever mentioned the possibility or existence of FOD.
From the video, it appeared that at least two rather large portions of the cowling departed the aircraft while still over the runway. I can only imagine the damage potential to another unwitting aircraft that gathered it off the runway via its “Turbine Hoover Vac.”
Two takeaways for me are reinforced. 1. Priority one – Fly the Plane. 2. In some cases, NOT knowing the exact extent of the damage can help reduce the “Oh My God” factor and allow you to focus on job #1.
Russ, et al: I hit the “report comment” link by mistake, please disregard.
Marc, there wouldn’t be a need for ATC and the flight crew to talk about FOD, especially given that they have to focus on the emergency itself. Standard practice at airports is to close a runway that an emergency aircraft has landed on until the runway’s been inspected after touchdown.
Professional crew in the air and professional controllers on the ground. Grateful for a positive outcome for all the passengers and crew.
Love the way the media jumped all over that it is a “Boeing aircraft” and OH NO, they are falling out of the sky!!!
Worked for Boeing in many capacities for almost 40 years…. This is bad maintenance by Southwest. Thousands of Boeing aircraft fly every day all over the world. Lets put this in perspective.
Everyone did a remarkable job. Sounds like everyone had the appropriate amount of concern. He got vectored around a bit but sounds he needed that time to do all the math.
For all the pro pilots out there, this amateur is curious. Do these emergency pilots just get picked up and put on another flight to finish out their day, you know, because they aren’t doing anything right now. Or is there some sort of debrief/decompression time?
Generally airlines will want the crew to get a little decompression time – it can depend on the issue, and the airline – if it’s something really insignificant, and the pilot(s) are ok with it, they generally can continue. My airline would pull the crew for anything significant, even if the pilots felt ok to continue.
Is there no way an attendant can take a passenger’s smartphone to the cockpit so the flight crew can SEE the actual damage? I wonder if they deployed the reversers after landing, and that caused most of the cowling to shred on the runway. Not a good move, since they still had their brakes on the long runway.
Richard, you obviously did not watch the video. THEY(the crew) notified ATC of possible flap damage and were going to make a no-flap landing on Rwy26 because of reduced crosswind.
After running the numbers and finding R26 too short, they landed 34L(16,000 ft.). All other runways at DEN are 12,000 ft. in length. With 5 Hrs. of fuel on board, high airport elevation, being heavy(over max landing weight) an educated guess is a ref speed no flap around 180 kts. As a pilot (flatlander) who has flown out of all the major Colorado high elevation airports, knowing what they knew and given the givens I would have used reversers as well. Let’s leave the second guessing to NTSB.
Depending on whether the landing was a Leading edge flaps up landing, which procedurally be a trailing edge 15º landing the Vref would be about 171 knots at max landing weight (144,000#).
An all flaps up landing at Max gross weight landing the vref is calculated at Vref 40º flaps plus 55 knots. This would be (vref 40 = 142 knots plus 55 knots) 197 knots. Either way pretty high ground speed at a high altitude airport.
Daaam! My 737 experience is in the OG(200). I’ve heard the NG’s and Max’s were faster. I’ll bet they were over MLW as well, so it all adds up!
Still interesting that they chose 34L, with about a 25kt crosswind, if they thought they might have had control issues.
Seems as if the cabin crew should be able to correctly describe to the flight crew that engine cowling had come detached. It’s unclear there is any damage to the flaps, that’s just what the flight crew is reporting to ATC based on what they were told by cabin crew.
Considering the fact that you can buy a wireless camera for $60.00 or less, methinks that it would be prudent to install one at the top of the vertical stab as well as one each side of the horizontal stab. How about installing two more in the cabin–one facing aft and one looking forward. I don’t think it would be prudent to install them in the lavatories though…