A hard landing on a Southwest Airlines plane carrying 142 passengers and crew at California’s John Wayne Airport last month ruptured a flight attendant’s swivel, federal investigators said.
“She stated that the plane hit the ground with such force that she thought the plane had crashed,” the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report released Aug. 5. The flight attendant’s back and neck hurt so much that she could not move. Paramedics took her to the hospital, the NTSB said.
The Santa Ana, Calif., airport has a short runway, the NTSB said, and pilots “aimed at the touchdown zone” and attempted to land “with minimal hover.” In the end, however, it was a safe landing.”
Flight attendants say injuries from turbulent skies are generally a bigger concern when walking around the cabin. In this case, the flight attendant was buckled into her jump seat in the rear of the aircraft before landing.
No one else was injured in the July 1 incident, investigators said, and Southwest said the plane proceeded to its next destination. The airline said it conducted an internal review but declined to answer questions about the cause of the rough landing.
Southwest said in a statement that safety is its top priority, adding, “We are concerned if an employee is injured.”
The nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation said in a report this year that runway incidents accounted for a significant proportion of the events it was tracking around the world in 2021. heavy or hard landings resulting in significant airframe damage and landing gear collapse or other landing gear problems,” said the report, which listed 13 such incidents.