The captain of the Southwest Boeing 737 that made a hard nosewheel landing in 2013 “should have called for a go-around” and didn’t comply with standard operating procedures on final approach, the NTSB said Thursday in its probable cause report on the accident. The landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on July 22, 2013, resulted in a nose gear collapse and substantial damage. All 149 passengers and crew evacuated and eight were treated for injuries.
The first officer was flying the approach. Operating procedures called for 40 degrees of flaps by 1,000 feet above the touchdown zone, but the captain realized the flaps weren’t set and made the correction at about 500 feet, according to the NTSB’s report. With the 737 between 100 and 200 feet above touchdown and above the glideslope, the captain took the controls. Flight data showed the control column went forward to neutral and throttles were not advanced until about a second before touchdown. The aircraft landed at a descent rate of 960 feet per minute, 3.1 degrees nose-down, the NTSB found. “The late transfer of control resulted in neither pilot being able to effectively monitor the airplane’s altitude and attitude. The first officer reported that, after the captain took control of the airplane, he scanned the altimeter and airspeed to gain situational awareness but that he became distracted by the runway “rushing” up to them and “there was no time to say anything,” the report said.
