Southwest Airlines is implementing Honeywell’s SmartRunway and SmartLanding software across its entire fleet of more than 800 Boeing 737s.
SmartRunway and SmartLanding is an advanced cockpit awareness system (an evolution of Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS)) which is designed to improve runway situational awareness, and reduce the risk of runway incursions and excursions.
Besides providing basic runway and taxiway information, the aural alert system will warn pilots of a number of things such as taking off from a taxiway or a runway not programmed into their flight management computer.
It will also alert crew members if they are in less-than-ideal situations on approaches such as flying too fast or too high, aiming for the wrong runway when landing, and will even caution the crew if it thinks the aircraft will overrun the runway. These are of course just some of the situations it covers.
The system is able to make these decisions by cross referencing its current location (based on the aircraft’s GPS and its inertial reference system) to a stored airport surface database.
The software integrates into the already installed Honeywell Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System featured on all their 737s. What’s most surprising is that SmartRunway and SmartLanding is not new tech, and was approved for use by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2009.
Here is a demonstration of the system on an Embraer E-Jet.
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Just a month before, Southwest flight 4069 was on approach into Oklahoma City when the aircraft descended as low as 525 feet above ground level when they were 7.9 nautical miles from the runway threshold. Ideally the aircraft should have been around 2,000 feet above ground level at that location.
The same month, after flight 2786 initiated a go-around at Lihue due to bad weather and low visibility, the pilot flight invertedly pushed the control column forward, rather than pulling back, putting the aircraft into a rapid descent. They leveled the aircraft at 400 feet above ground level before climbing again to attempt a second approach.
