Southwest Airlines creates 'fly-by' policy
Incident in March left pilot without explicit guideline
BY TED JACKOVICS
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA -- Since a Southwest Airlines pilot agreed to an air traffic controller's request in March to follow a small plane that had lost radio contact, the carrier has created a policy on how to deal with such requests, an official said Thursday.
Southwest, which had no such policy previously, now forbids pilots to accept air traffic controller requests to check other aircraft in flight, airline spokeswoman Brandy King said. Southwest previously had not commented on policy.
The new guideline was implemented after a Federal Aviation Administration controller's request on March 27 for the pilot of a Southwest Boeing 737 to visually contact a small plane whose pilot had lost radio contact for about 90 minutes.
The Southwest pilot on course for a landing in Orlando flew the airliner with 143 people aboard close enough to the Cirrus SR22 to see its two occupants, a National Transportation Safety Board report in August said. Both planes landed safely, but the head of the FAA has said the planes came too close to each other to fly safely.
The FAA on Tuesday released an audio recording of the radio exchange between the pilots and controllers. The NTSB has not issued a final report or its recommendations, but the FAA suspended the controller.
The Southwest pilot continues to fly for the airline and all members of the crew remain company employees, King said.
The pilot's judgment to agree to the "fly-by" of the light plane was made in the absence of documented Southwest policy pertaining to that specific situation at the time of the incident, King said.
"Immediately following the incident, Southwest distributed guidance to our pilots outlining that similar requests should not be accommodated," she said.
Southwest continues to cooperate with authorities and support all parties throughout the investigation process, King said.
"Because it is an ongoing investigation, we cannot provide additional commentary at this time," she said.
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