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Southwest Airlines 737 MAX Suffers Dutch Roll at 32,000 Feet

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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has confirmed that a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX suffered a Dutch Roll at 32,000 feet. (aviationsourcenews.com) More...

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Highflyer1950
Highflyer1950 10
If not a rudder control unit issue, possible turbulence induced followed by improper flight control inputs. The B-727 could become quite a handful. Mind you the 737 has less wing sweep. If left unchecked dutch roll can get very violent.
mbrews
mbrews 1
Incident happened May 25 2024 when operating Phoenix to Oakland. That was Memorial Day weekend. I do recall strong winds aloft in Western USA that day, I was flying westbound from NorCal to NYC.
Highflyer1950
Highflyer1950 3
Westbound?
carste10
carste10 6
The long way, lol.
mbrews
mbrews 1
Brain cramp. SFO to JFK. with strong winds aloft. The final report will tell us what happened.
Highflyer1950
Highflyer1950 1
Just kidding, figured a typo.:)
chris13
Chris Bryant 10
"...a routine scheduled flight between Phoenix and Arizona." - editing isn't what it used to be.
Joystick2969
Stephen Rogers 8
Now that we have almost unlimited data storage on our keychain fob, it seems like we could have more than two hours of cockpit voice recordings.
ColinSeftel
Colin Seftel 4
Aviation Herald reports that there was damage to two ribs which support the rudder standby Power Control Unit (PCU) as well as damage to the mounts of the standby actuator. A temporary repair was done in Oakland replacing the damaged PCU, and the aircraft was then flown to Everett to replace the damaged ribs.
https://avherald.com/h?article=519ce679&opt=0
mbrews
mbrews 3
Thanks Colin. I read the Avherald account. In this thread, High flyer describes 2 possibilities — 1) Rudder control unit malfunctions first, or 2) Possible turbulence induced Dutch roll happens first, followed by improper flight control inputs. (Which might have stressed the ribs & PCU mounts). Final investigation will reveal which came first.
ensley6969
Charles Ensley 4
Had a dutch roll incident back in my flying days on the 727. It was something we got training in during sim training in initial qualifications. Flying from NY to Chicago one night the autopilot kicked off, and the plane started to act crazy. The Captain grabbed the yoke and started to fight the back and forth of the yaw/banks. He said you try it and see what you think. It was squirrely for sure, and difficult to control. We figured it must be dutch roll because when we did the inputs we were taught, we kept the plane under control. We flew it that way for another 45 minutes or so until we could land at our hub where there where mechanics that could tackle this issue. On block in the mechanic came inside the cockpit and told us you gotta come look at this. The 727 had a lower and upper split rudder system. The upper rudder had failed like 20-30 degrees off center. Absolutely, positively, overnight was the cargo carriers TV commercials back then, and I absolutely remember this night.
patpylot
patrick baker 8
recovering from that position is a high level of airmanship and some acrabatic training too.
saru308
Gail Peterson 2
This could have been a result of turbulence. It brings to my memory AA flt 587 that crashed after the A300 flew into the wake turbulence of a departing 747 and the pilot used excessive rudder control causing the entire vertical stabilizer to detach from the airframe.
Highflyer1950
Highflyer1950 2
Possibly but wing tip vortices usually require a roll input to correct rather than yaw control. If I remember correctly the F/O used the rudder like a fish and it structurally failed. Dutch roll usually starts with Yawing movement requiring co-ordinated yaw/aileron inputs to eliminate. Power control unit or flight control mismanagement, either way the investigation will figure it out.
jeffflicker
Jeff Flicker 2
Would the passengers have been aware of this incident?
onwardlam
Onward Lam 2
Why did the article keep using "accident" when for all that mattered, this was an "incident", albeit a potentially dangerous one ? There was also so much fluff in that piece that were unrelated to the event.
punkrawk78
Silent Bob 5
As much as I like to bag on the media, and deservedly so most times, the NTSB defines what constitutes an incident vs an accident. In this case the aircraft apparently suffered “substantial damage” as defined by the NTSB and so it qualifies as an accident. It would certainly help if the article(s) explained that distinction but as we all know they’re mostly interested in generating clicks vs providing useful information.
AirplaneC
C J 2
(Duplicate Squawk Submitted)

FAA investigating substantial damage to Boeing 737 Max in 'Dutch roll' incident

A federal investigation is underway into how a Southwest Airlines passenger jet suffered substantial damage after experiencing a rare phenomenon known as a Dutch roll at almost 38,000 feet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/faa-investigating-boeing-737-max-dutch-roll-incident-rcna157145
AirplaneC
C J 1
Sorry for the duplication! My fault.
stratofan
stratofan 1
As I recall, the B-47 Stratojet was very easy to get into "dutch roll" as any swept wing design is prone to under the right conditions. Proper training was instituted to deal with it as it arose inflight.
MSReed
MSReed 1
I haven't flown commercial in years. This doesn't encourage me to change that.
RidgewoodNJ
Barry Morse 1
Let's see what the investigation determines. Dutch roll, combined with over-control while correcting, could cause damaging stress, especially if the aircraft had not been slowed to below max maneuvering speed.
locomoco
M.F. LaBoo 0
Click on the Aviation Herald link 3 "Furthermores" into this ad-laden excuse for journalism if you want to read a concise, detailed version of this incident.

[This poster has been suspended.]

btweston
btweston 2
Absolutists aren’t really into freedom, guy.
jmadunleavy
John D 3
Only for the absolutists.
montyw47
John Tyler 0
But the 737 series has had CHRONIC and at times life & aircraft FAILURES. Why has FAA let Boeing continue to deliver equipment that other agencies would have in effect "grounded"? Self driving Teslas were "grounded" until proven safe. Not until the next failure.

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