The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that there was a “Dutch roll” on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max on May 25th while it was flying from Phoenix to California, Oakland, resulting in damage to the plane structure. The occurrence took place when the airplane was at an altitude of 34,000 feet but Southwest airlines did not report this roll or the damage to NTSB until June 7.
“Subsequent maintenance actions by SWA identified that structural components were damaged,” said the safety board.
It is still unclear how much and how serious the damaged caused it but airline’s representative confirmed their involvement in the investigation.
What does Dutch Roll mean?
When yaw and rolling motions are combined, this causes aircrafts to sway rhythmically which is referred to as Dutch roll aerodynamically. Pilots are trained to recover from Dutch rolls as modern aircraft have yaw dampers which correct this condition through adjusting the rudder.
What happened to its structure?
After landing, FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) issued preliminary report stating that damage had been observed in a unit controlling backup power for rudder on South West plane. This implies that there is substantial harm done.
To help access how long it lasted and how severe it was, NTSB has taken data off Boeing 737 Max8. Nevertheless, after two hours, cockpit voice recorder was overwritten hence we do not have much information concerning pilots’ conversation. The pilots managed to regain control over this plane and landed it in Oakland with no any reported injuries among its passengers numbering one hundred seventy five as well as six crew members.
NTSB will release their preliminary report about such incident within approximately one month.
