Watch: Southwest jet buzzes Oklahoma neighborhood
The FAA is looking into what caused a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 to get within several hundred feet above the ground over the City of Yukon earlier this week.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is looking into what caused a Southwest Airlines plane to drop within several hundred feet of an Oklahoma neighborhood earlier this week.
Flight data shows Southwest Airlines Flight 4069, a Boeing 737-800 en route to Oklahoma City from Las Vegas, flew as low as 400 feet above the City of Yukon just after 12 a.m. Wednesday morning while on a final approach to Will Rogers World Airport.
Air traffic control audio obtained by Nexstar's KFOR indicated the plane flew so low that it triggered a "low altitude alert" in the Will Rogers World Airport control tower.
The plane hit its lowest altitude while flying over Yukon High School at 12:06 a.m. Wednesday.
It was loud enough to wake up Spencer Basoco, who lives a few blocks from the school.
“I was kind of like halfway in between sleep being awake, and I just hear this WHOOOSH,” Basoco told KFOR. “And I thought at first, like a storm was blowing in … because it just sounded like a wall of wind. And I looked out the window where the sound was coming from. … If you go a few blocks away is the high school. And I just see a plane.”
A KFOR viewer shared video of the plane captured by his doorbell camera. It shows lights blinking on a jet flying low above the neighborhood a good distance from the viewer’s house, before becoming obscured behind the roofs of nearby homes.
“I knew it wasn't normal,” Basoco said.
In air traffic control (ATC) audio obtained by KFOR, it was indicated that the plane’s pilots intended to land on runway 13, a runway going diagonally across the airfield at Will Rogers World Airport.
As the plane flew hundreds of feet above Yukon High School, an air traffic controller can be heard telling the pilot his plane set off a low altitude alert in the airport’s control tower. At that point, the plane was still nine miles away from the runway.
“Southwest 4069 … low altitude alert,” the air traffic controller said. “You doing OK?”
“Yeah we’re going around 4069,” the pilot responded.
At that moment, the plane was only 400-500 feet above the ground.
“To me, that's way too low,” KFOR helicopter pilot Mason Dunn said. “Even if he is lined up on the wrong runway, he's extremely low out there.”
After receiving the low altitude alert, flight records show the plane quickly gained altitude, climbing from around 450 feet above ground when it crossed over the northern edge of Yukon High School’s property to more than 1,000 feet above ground by the time it crossed the southern edge of the school’s property.
Flight records indicate the plane then circled around and reapproached the airport from the north, eventually landing on runway 17R, a different runway which runs due north/south.
The next time the plane got below 500 feet was within one mile of runway 17R on its final landing approach.
“Being this low out over a residential area is not normal,” Dunn said. “He doesn't get that low again until he's a mile from the airport.”
In a statement, a Southwest spokesperson confirmed to KFOR that the airline is cooperating with the FAA to determine what happened.
“Southwest Flight 4069 landed safely at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City just after 12 a.m. on June 19. Southwest is following its robust Safety Management System and is in contact with the Federal Aviation Administration to understand and address any irregularities with the aircraft’s approach to the airport. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the Safety of our Customers and Employees.”