FAA investigating Southwest flight to Tampa that plunged 150 feet above water

A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Tampa International Airport made a rapid descent on July 14, falling more than 1,500 feet in just over a minute, coming within 150 feet of the surface of Tampa Bay.

The accident occurred shortly after 7 p.m., according to public flight tracking data, while the plane was still miles from its destination. At that point, the FAA flight chart shows, the plane should have been more than 1,000 feet above the ground.

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

The Boeing 737 Max went down in stormy weather, with light rain and gusts of up to 20 mph, according to the weather station at Tampa International Airport. Conditions were so bad that the flight, which had departed from Columbus, Ohio, was diverted to Fort Lauderdale.

An air traffic control operator alerted the pilots to the plane’s low altitude, according to a recording of the communications uploaded to YouTube. At that point, the plane was rapidly climbing about 1,000 feet.

Robert Katz, a veteran commercial pilot, said that while flying so close to the surface, wind shear — a rapid change in wind speed or direction — could have “blow the plane away like a fly in Tampa Bay.”

Katz, a certified flight instructor in Texas, said the pilots did not appear to be monitoring the plane’s descent. He said the pilots should have known they were flying at a dangerous altitude without being alerted by controllers.

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

He added that if conditions were bad enough to require the aircraft to be diverted, that decision should have been made long before the flight reached that point in its descent.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the incident is under investigation. A spokesman for Tampa International Airport declined to comment, referring instead to Southwest.

“Southwest follows its robust safety management system and is in contact with the FAA to understand and address any violations,” Southwest said in a statement. “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees.”

Ben Schlappig, who drew attention to the rapid descent in his travel blog. One mile at a timeHe wrote Monday that the crash was a “near-catastrophe.” He speculated that the pilots may have mistook the Courtney Campbell Bridge — a long, straight stretch of road — for a runway, and descended with the intention of landing.

Katz said this is a possibility, but only if the pilots are extremely fatigued. He said such accidents typically occur when pilots are distracted by stress or fatigue, which can be exacerbated by bad weather.

“There are a lot of indicators inside the cockpit that the aircraft is approaching too low,” Katz said. “There are a lot of checks and balances put in place to get someone’s attention to say, you know, wake up, do something.”

The flight follows a similar incident last month in Oklahoma City where a Southwest Airlines plane flew unusually low while still miles from the airport.

In April, a Southwest flight made 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 Airlines plane that performed an unusual “Dutch roll” and found its tail damaged after a flight from Phoenix to Oakland, Calif. Investigators say the plane was parked outside during a severe storm.

Times staff writers Leslie Cosme-Torres and Shawna Mackle contributed to this report.