A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft came within 400 feet of slamming into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai after weather conditions forced pilots to swiftly change course.
A Southwest Airlines memo to pilots, obtained by Bloomberg News, detailed Southwest Flight 2786 from the April 11 flight from Honolulu International Airport to Lihue Airport in Kauai.
Passengers were left white-knuckled after the aircraft dropped from nearly 16,000 feet to an altitude of 409 feet.
According to the Southwest memo, the incident occurred following an aborted landing attempt due to bad weather that blocked pilots from seeing the runway at the specified altitude.
The memo noted that the captain opted to put the “newer” first officer in command of the 100-mile interisland flight, despite the pending weather.
The less-experienced first officer “inadvertently” pushed forward on the control column, which controls the plane’s pitch and roll, then cut the speed, causing the airplane to rapidly descend.
The pilot’s aggressive movement prompted the warning system to sound the alarm that the passenger aircraft was getting too close to the terrain.
