Moonie,
I flew into Midway in 1961 in a North Central Airlines Convair 440. No problem for the old prop jobs.
A bunch of us from Kincheloe AFB in northern Michigan were going on a TDY to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
737's have good short field performance. They fly into Midway every day. The weather seems to have been the problem.
Thomas Maddux
Tommie, I figured you wouldn't let that one go.
The weather is always a problem here. But this kind of accident has never happened at Midway before. I've landed here in no visibility (as a passenger)
"Though the airport had about 7 inches of snow, aviation officials said conditions at the time were acceptable. And the plane did not appear to have any maintenance problems and had undergone a service check Wednesday in Phoenix, Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly said."
"No less important is the fact that an especially high level of caution is required whenever severe weather that could compromise a safe landing is obvious and when runway conditions deteriorate," said Marc S. Moller, an aviation attorney and partner at Kreindler & Kreindler. "Weather doesn't cause accidents; people do. The fact that other aircraft safely landed last night before Flight 1248 and that the runway condition was reported as 'fair' would seem to suggest that there was something different about this plane's approach and landing. The 737-700 involved in the Midway crash should have had the auto brake system installed and, if used, that should have stopped the aircraft, given a normal and stable approach by the flight crew. Yesterday's crash is not the first in bad weather that should never have happened."
"Southwest Flight 1248 landed Thursday night on Midway's runway 33 center, the airport's longest at 6,500 feet. While adequately long for jets of that size, and even for the larger 757,
such relatively short runways significantly narrow pilots' margin of error — requiring even more precise control of speed and descent rate, and a more precise touchdown farther up the runway."That last factor became an issue in the Air France crash. Witnesses noted the plane touched down well past the standard touchdown zone, perhaps as far as halfway down the runway. It was not clear Friday just where the Southwest flight touched down."
