FAA investigates Southwest flight to Tampa that crashed 150 feet above water

A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Tampa International Airport experienced a rapid descent on July 14, plummeting more than 1,500 feet (450 meters) in just over a minute and coming within 150 feet (46 meters) of the surface of Tampa Bay.

The incident occurred shortly after 7 p.m., according to public flight tracking data, when the plane was still miles from its destination. At that point, a Federal Aviation Administration flight map shows, the plane should have been more than 1,000 feet above the Earth’s surface.

Instead, it flew at about the height of a 15-story building.

The plane – a Boeing 737 MAX – encountered stormy weather with light rain and gusts of up to 20 mph, according to a weather station at Tampa International Airport. Conditions were so bad that the flight, which had taken off from Columbus, Ohio, was diverted to Fort Lauderdale.

An air traffic controller alerted the pilots to the plane’s low altitude, according to a recording of the communication uploaded to YouTube, at which point the plane climbed rapidly to about 300 meters.

Robert Katz, an experienced commercial pilot, said that if flying that close to the Earth’s surface, wind shear – a rapid change in the speed or direction of the wind – could have thrown the plane “like a fly into Tampa Bay.”

Katz, a certified flight instructor in Texas, said the pilots apparently did not monitor the plane’s descent. He said the pilots should have known they were flying at a dangerous altitude even without being alerted by air traffic controllers.

“This should not have happened,” Katz said. “These pilots will have a lot of explaining to do.”

He added that if conditions had been so bad that it was necessary to divert the aircraft, that decision would have had to be made long before reaching that point during the descent.

The FAA said in a statement that the incident was being investigated. A Tampa International Airport spokesman declined to comment, referring instead to Southwest.

“Southwest follows its robust safety management system and is in communication with the Federal Aviation Administration to understand and correct any irregularities,” Southwest said in a statement. “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees.”

Ben Schlappig, who highlighted the rapid descent in his aviation blog One Mile at a Time, wrote on Monday that the incident was “nearly a disaster.” He speculated that the pilots may have mistaken the Courtney Campbell Causeway – a long, straight road – for a runway and descended with the intention of landing.

Katz said that’s a possibility – but only if pilots are extremely fatigued. He said such incidents typically occur when pilots are inattentive due to stress or fatigue, which can be made worse by bad weather conditions.

“There are numerous indicators in the cockpit that the plane is descending too low,” Katz said. “There are numerous control mechanisms that will get someone’s attention and tell them to wake up, do something.”

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The flight followed a similar incident last month in Oklahoma City in which a Southwest jet flew at an unusually low altitude while still miles from the airport.

In April, a Southwest flight went into a dive off the coast of Hawaii, coming within 400 feet of the ocean before the plane began to climb.

The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating a Southwest jet that performed an unusual “Dutch roll” after a flight from Phoenix to Oakland, California, and discovered damage to the tail. Investigators say the plane was parked outside during a severe storm.

Times writers Lesley Cosme Torres and Shauna Muckle contributed to this report.