On May 24, 2024, a Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Oakland experienced unexpected rudder movements, and the aircraft experienced substantial damages. Luckily, the 175 passengers and six crewmembers were not injured. This week, the National Transportation Safety Board finally released its report on the incident, revealing that the root cause of the issue was wind damage at New Orleans International Airport from nine days earlier.
During the evening of May 16, 2024, the aircraft, while parked in New Orleans, experienced winds from thunderstorms that gusted as high at 84 mph. The NTSB noted that the Boeing 737’s rudder system does not include any type of a gust-lock function. It said it was likely that the high winds resulted in movement of the rudder that damaged the vertical stabilizer that the standby rudder power control unit was connected.
“At the time of the accident, the Boeing 737 aircraft maintenance manual conditional inspection for parked or moored airplanes that experienced an extreme high wind event lacked a defined wind threshold for requiring the conditional inspection to be performed,” stated the report. “Additionally, SWA did not have a process in place to notify maintenance control for when their parked aircraft may have experienced an extreme high wind event. Therefore, the conditional inspection for extreme high wind events, which could have detected structural damage to the vertical stabilizer, was not accomplished after the thunderstorms. The accident airplane resumed flying the next morning.”
The NTSB reported that between May 17 and 23, 2024, the aircraft flew a total of 38 flights with no reported rudder anomalies, so the damaged vertical stabilizer ribs remained undetected. It also said that the aircraft had scheduled maintenance inspections on May 23. These inspections included an operational test of the standby hydraulic system. However, contrary to the required procedure, Southwest’s maintenance personnel did not visually confirm the rudder position during the testing. An additional six flights occurred before the incident on the 24th.
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