Federal officials are investigating a Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) flight that landed at the wrong airport yesterday en route to Branson Airport.
A Boeing 737-700 carrying 124 passengers and five crew landed at the M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport in Hollister on Sunday, causing no damage or injuries but leaving officials wondering what went wrong, according to a statement provided by Southwest. The smaller Hollister airport sits about eight miles northwest of Branson Airport.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration have indicated investigations into the incident are proceeding. U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., too, has called for a full investigation.
Flight No. 4013 headed toward BKG took off from Chicago Midway International Airport, according to the statement.
"The landing was uneventful, and all customers and crew are safe. Our focus was getting our customers and crew re-accommodated as quickly as possible," Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said in the statement provided to Springfield Business Journal.
The schedule called for the Boeing aircraft to touch down at BKG before continuing on to Dallas Love Field in Texas. Branson Airport crew members arrived at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport and shuttled passengers and their luggage to BKG. A separate aircraft was deployed by Southwest to take the passengers on to Dallas, according to a news release from Branson Airport officials.
"We want to thank first responders and Branson airport administrators for joining in the work. Our ground operations staff immediately began to take care of our customers and their baggage last night and have since reached to each of them directly to apologize, explain what we know, refund their tickets and provide future travel credit as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience," Mainz said in the statement.
"We continue to look into all of the circumstances which led the captain in command of flight 4013 from Chicago Midway to land at the airport, several miles from the Branson Airport we serve."
According to an
Associated Press report, M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport has about half as much runway as Branson Airport. Passengers interviewed by the AP said the pilot pulled the brake hard and forcibly upon landing at the Hollister airport, and when passengers exited the craft, some noticed it was some 100 feet away from the edge of the runway.
