A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 from Portland, Maine to Baltimore reportedly took off from a runway that had been closed on Tuesday of this week – and there was a vehicle on the runway at the time. The incident was first reported by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
The plane couldn’t be reached – they weren’t responsive on the common traffic advisory frequency – either tuned to the wrong frequency or with an inoperative radio.
From what I can figure from LiveATC, a Southwest flight departed PWM on a closed runway with an ops vehicle on it. This happened before the ATC tower opened for the day.
Nobody at PWM could reach Southwest flight because they seemed to not be on the common radio frequency. https://t.co/KzQfxveluG
— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) June 27, 2024
Ops: “Tower…did you ever get a hold of that Southwest plane once he’s airborne or is he still kind of MIA in that regard?”
Tower: “We never talked to the aircraft, we’re technically not open there until 0545.”
Ops: Unintelligible
Tower: “I’m not either, considering you were…
— Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) June 27, 2024
There was a NOTAM that the runway was closed. This plane took off, prior to the runway’s opening and before the airfield’s air traffic control tower began work for the day. Flight 4805 took off at 5:43 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The tower doesn’t open until 5:45 a.m. It appears that proper procedures for such operations were not followed.
Just last week a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Oklahoma City descended all the way down to about 525 feet – when it was still 9 miles from its destination airport. Fortunately air traffic control in that instance received an alert about the plane’s altitude and contacted the pilots, “Southwest 4069, low altitude alert. You good out there?”
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