The FAA is Looking Into a Southwest Flight That Flew Only 525 Feet Above a Town in Oklahoma, Setting Off an Altitude Warning

As it got closer to Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport on Wednesday, a Southwest Airlines flight dropped to just 525 feet above the ground, which caused air traffic control to send out a warning that the flight was going too low. The Federal Aviation Administration is now looking into what happened.

A flight tracking site called FlightRadar24 shows that Southwest flight 4069 dropped to a low level just after midnight on Wednesday, about 9 miles from the airport and over Yukon, Oklahoma.

In a recording of air traffic control made by LiveATC.net, you can hear a director say, “Southwest 4069 low altitude alert.” “Are you okay out there?”

You can’t hear the pilots’ answer.

Tracking data show that after the descent stopped, the Boeing 737-800 quickly climbed and then made adjustments so it could land safely in Oklahoma City.

A statement from the FAA to CNN said that they were looking into what happened and that an air traffic controller told the crew of Southwest Airlines Flight 4069 that the plane had dropped to a low altitude nine miles from Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City after an automated warning went off.

Following the event, the carrier says it has talked to the FAA.

The company said in a statement, “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the Safety of our Customers and Employees.” “Southwest is following its strict Safety Management System and is in touch with the Federal Aviation Administration to find out what went wrong with the plane’s approach to the airport and fix it.”

This is the second time in recent weeks that a Southwest jet came very close to hitting the ground. In April, Southwest Flight 2786’s crew decided not to land at Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai. Instead, they went down to 400 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

Source: CNN