The faulty door locks that resulted in last week’s Alaska Airlines incident in which a whole side panel of a plane was blown open, has apparently spooked other pilots.
At the very least, it certainly has served as a deterrent.
A United Airlines pilot made the decision to make an emergency landing at Tampa International Airport this week after a door indicator light came on.
The flight had just taken off 50 minutes earlier from nearby Sarasota.
“You don’t ignore lights, and you don’t attempt to reset them and say, ‘Well, maybe it’s just a sensor,'” said John Cox, an aviation expert and a former captain. “… There’s a procedure that you follow, that is in the checklist, the abnormal checklist, and you follow that procedure, and you go ahead and you pick a diversion airport and go land there.”
Though the emergency landing turned out to be precautionary, it is still a big deal, especially in light of the Alaska Airlines issue.
“You need to advise air traffic control. You need to advise the company so they can have a gate for you, they can have maintenance wait for you,” Cox said.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are both investigating the Alaska Airlines incident.
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