AirBear

https://onemileatatime.com/news/sout...closed-runway/

Early morning departure from PWM, tower wasn't open yet. Rwy 29 was closed and had an ops vehicle doing some work. They had to quickly exit the runway.
Also, SWA was't on CTAF.

TiredSoul

Bit of a woke thing to do if you ask me.

EasternATC

The NTSB has released their preliminary report (link is a downloadable PDF file).

Of note, the pilots say all traffic advisory broadcasts were made on 122.95, not the CTAF.

AirBear

Perhaps SWA doesn't encounter uncontrolled fields that much? Using CTAF when tower is closed is a pretty basic SOP.

Beech Dude

Huh? They (SWA crew) didn't exit the runway, the ops vehicle had to hustle. SWA took off and and got called later by BOS telling them about their boo-boo.

Broncofan

by “crew” I think he was referring to the ground ops crew

Emmerson Bigs

CTAF freq is clearly displayed on the 10-9. Sympathy points are in the negative, IMO. This is not a difficult process. Student pilots in a -152 do better than this.
These two clowns really have no excuse. So many resources available to figure this out before power is set and workers on the closed runway are scattering for their lives.

captjns

Basic private pilot stuff. Oh wait they aren't private pilots. I wouldn't trust these two to operate a turd hearse near a model airplane. And please spare us those enclined with the usual "By the Grace......". Soooo how's the Southwest ASAP ERC gonna spin this episode?

e6bpilot

First of all, good to know you have never made a mistake in your life. Good on you. We all strive for your high level of perfection and achievement of greatness.

I think it is fair to say that everyone working at the airline in question strives to get it 100 percent right all the time, just as most of us do. It is up to leadership to provide the tools to make that happen. When you operate over 4k flights a day, you are going to have some stuff happen. No excuses, the crews are paid to catch the mistakes and manage the risk that leads down the path to an accident. Everybody on the line is, especially now, hyper aware of what has been portrayed in the news cycle and I think you are about to see a big shift in the way the training department operates and implements changes.

As far as the ERC, I suspect they have already thoroughly interviewed and recommended training for the crew and gatherered the appropriate data to further the aims of industry wide safety reporting and data analysis programs, just as it is intended to do. Mistakes were clearly made, but nobody was intentionally violating rules or being reckless.

rickair7777

I wouldn't be quite so sure about that. The CA's statements seemed to indicate that he was trying to both takeoff before the tower opened, and also after the closure NOTAM expired. That's not possible, there's no regulatory microsecond where neither condition applies. The ERC might not be able to get to "inadvertent" on this one. I recall a similar kind of thing once where the PM tried to BS center on the radio, but the PF (presumably the CA) stepped in and confessed on the radio to set the record straight. ERC would have rejected it otherwise, but they had a good laugh and accepted the asap since the crew did the right thing in short order.

I'm pointing this out for the benefit of others, it's easy to forget that ASAP won't cover you if it's an intentional violation, or you try to hide something.