There was almost a major American air disaster this week. It was only a mashed-up runway that stopped the plane from running through a barrier and into oncoming traffic.
The mainstream media largely missed the story because the runway EMAS systems slowed the jet and stopped it from rolling into the cars. Without EMAS, the story would have been very different.
The Story
After a bumpy descent, a Southwest Airlines 737 flying from Oakland to Burbank in California, slipped off the runway.
It was forced to use the runways Engineered Material Arresting System, or EMAS, which uses crushable concrete at the end of a runway to stop an aircraft that overruns. The tires of the aircraft sink into this lightweight concrete, which slows down the plane to stop it from going beyond the runway and, in this case, into oncoming traffic.
The image above is of a jet caught up in an EMAS in Charleston from 2010, but it was the Southwest jet shown below that almost crashed.
In a statement, Southwest said, “Southwest Flight 278 from OAK to BUR landed safely and rolled to a stop at the end of a runway. Customers deplaned the aircraft via air stairs, with no reported injuries among the 112 Customers and five Crewmembers.”
If I haven’t put you off flying Southwest Airlines, maybe this horrific video of a Southwest plane trying to land in a storm will.
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