Jet Touched Runway ‘Way Too Fast,’ One Veteran Pilot Says

A Southwest Airlines jet was going almost 60 mph too fast when it touched down at Burbank airport and skidded out of control, veteran jetliner pilots said Tuesday.

The excessive speed apparently caused the 108,000-pound airliner to slide off the end of the runway, smash through a barrier and come to rest on a busy street Sunday night, said Barry Schiff, a retired Trans World Airlines pilot and air crash consultant.

Data retrieved from recording devices on the Boeing 737-300 show that it was traveling at 208 mph as it landed, compared with a normal touchdown speed of about 150 mph.

“That was way too fast, and that meant trouble,” Schiff said. “I can’t figure out what that pilot thought he was doing. There’s no excuse for it.”

Lew Aaronson, a retired Continental Airlines pilot, said that at that speed, “you’re going to have a lot of trouble stopping that plane.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said information gleaned from the two “black box” recorders on the plane show that its pilot and co-pilot--whose names have not been made public--were cleared to prepare for a landing on the airport’s west-to-east Runway 8 about 6 p.m. after an apparently routine flight from Las Vegas.

The pilots were told to remain at an altitude of at least 3,000 feet above sea level until reaching a navigation reference point about six miles from the end of the runway. The plane was free to descend after that point.

However, radar data indicate that the plane did not begin descending until it was four miles from the runway, which is 775 feet above sea level.

“That was late,” Schiff said. “I don’t know why he would have done that.”

Because he began late, the pilot at the controls descended at a steep, 6-degree angle, roughly twice what is normal, the NTSB said.

“That probably accounts for all that speed,” Schiff said.

As the plane dropped, an automated ground-proximity alarm in the cockpit shouted warnings of “sink rate” and “pull up.”

Schiff said the device is programmed to issue the warnings whenever the plane is approaching the ground at an unusual rate of descent.

Passengers said the jet landed hard, streaking past the airport terminal. The NTSB said that about 20 seconds after touching down, the plane struck a barrier at the end of the runway. At the moment of impact, the NTSB said, the plane was going 37 mph.

The impact damaged the plane’s nose and engine cowlings and broke off the front landing gear. Continuing on, the battered jetliner grazed an automobile on Hollywood Way and slid to a halt a few yards short of a service station.

Fifteen of the 142 people aboard the plane complained of minor injuries, and four of them were briefly hospitalized. The pilot, who suffered scalp cuts--apparently when his head struck a plastic display panel on the plane’s dashboard--was the most seriously injured.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla called for a review of air safety in the San Fernando Valley, citing recent mishaps, including Sunday’s.

Padilla’s motion, set for a council vote next week, asks officials of the Los Angeles World Airports to meet with their counterparts in the Federal Aviation Administration and the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority to review whether more can be done to improve air safety.