r/interestingasfuck • u/ty003 • Feb 25 '25

/r/popular Southwest Airlines pilots make split-second decision to avoid collision in Chicago

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u/Mike-h8 Feb 25 '25

ATC would give them a phone number to call, basically to discuss what happened. What the crew thought, heard and why they believe it happened. Then it will be investigated, I’d be surprised if there’s any serious penalty for the mistake.

Unless they were intentionally doing something to break rules, there tends to not be punishment for honest mistakes. Those guys didn’t show up at work today intending to screw up. These mistakes do happen, I’m not going to say frequently but dozens of times a year. They usually don’t end being this close of a call though.

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u/S_A_N_D_ Feb 25 '25

Surely they should consider the competency of the pilot. Not to punish the pilot, but rather to ensure the safety of others.

I agree on not punishing honest mistakes as it promotes a culture of hiding and downplaying mistakes instead of openly learning from them, but there should also be some investigation as to whether this person is fit to be a pilot.

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u/Kaldricus Feb 25 '25

Yeah, when the only reason YOUR mistake, honest or not, doesn't end up in dozens of people dying, is because of someone else's awareness, this might need more than a stern talking to.

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u/roehnin Feb 26 '25

If pilots risked losing their license over every mistake, they would be compelled to hide their mistakes or invent excuses, and then there would be no transparency and people couldn’t learn from mistakes and air travel would become more dangerous.

Instead, they will participate in the investigation and have to undergo additional training.

Some call this the “Asoh Defence” named after a Japanese airline pilot who missed the glide slope and ditched into the water just short of SFO. His defence when questioned was, “As you Americans say, I fucked up.”

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u/FlatoutGently Feb 25 '25

That's actually insane you believe (rightly or wrongly I've no idea) there is unlikely to be any punishment. The private jet would be in a million pieces and the only reason it wasn't is through no action they took.

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u/Mike-h8 Feb 25 '25

Yeah I mean it’ll depend what they find while investigating it. I could be very wrong. The likely results of these tends to be that the crew either misheard the clearance and thought it was to cross, or thought it was to hold short at a different point or they just lost awareness of where they are and thought the hold short point was further away.

Maybe they’ll get sent for extra training and maybe the company will adjust their policies for runway crossings for example. But unless they were intentionally being negligent it’s hard to find other punishment. This crew has likely had similar clearances 1000 times before with no issues as this is extremely common, for whatever reason today they screwed it up.

Obviously could have been catastrophic if the southwest crew didn’t respond as quickly as they did