Close shave, great save: Off duty pilot onboard Southwest airliner steps in as captain almost faints

Las Vegas: In yet another near-miss incident involving US’s Southwest airlines, an off duty pilot, who was travelling as passenger, had to step in to provide assistance after the flight captain almost lost consciousness mid-flight. According to reports, the incident occurred Wednesday, almost two hours after the Southwest airlines flight 6013 took off from Las Vegas for Columbus, Ohio. However, when the captain went down mid-flight, the onboard pilot of a different airline stepped in and assisted another pilot through radio communication to execute a U-turn back to the starting. Before finally making its way back to Las Vegas, the aircraft flew over Utah to the north of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Southwest said in a statement that “the aircraft landed safely” and that “an alternative flight crew is operating the flight to CMH (Columbus). “We salute the crew’s professionalism and value our customers’ tolerance and comprehension of the circumstance,” they said in the statement. As per reports, the FAA on Wednesday issued safety alerts to airlines, pilots, and others about the “need for continued vigilance and attention to mitigation of safety risks, after a string of high-profile near-collisions were reported recently. The FAA stated that although the overall statistics do not show a rise in incidents and occurrences, the potential severity of these events is worrisome. Following six severe runway incursions since January, the agency called a safety summit last week. The alert advised operators to assess the data gathered through their safety management procedures, spot hazards, enhance and improve safety communications with employees, and implement mitigations. The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into a number of serious close calls, including a February near-collision between FedEx and Southwest Airlines planes in Austin, Texas, where the planes were within 100 feet of one another, and an American Airlines plane entering the runway at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. A Southwest Airlines plane reportedly narrowly avoided striking an ambulance that was crossing the runway as it took off at the airport in Baltimore. At Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, an Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) vehicle crossed Runway 15R without permission, according to a story from DC News Now published on Tuesday. The Southwest Boeing 737 airplane missed the ambulance by “less than half the length of a football field” when it was given the go-ahead to take off from the same runway. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stated in its analysis that “the closest estimated horizontal separation occurred at a distance of 173 feet.” Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.