Southwest Airlines Flight 293
Boeing 737-3A4 · Incident: vortex turbulence encountered on approach
From Dallas Love Field (DAL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95IA083
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing 737-3A4
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N326SW
- Operator
- Southwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Wake turbulence › Encountered
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Houston, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING DESCENT FOR THE LANDING APPROACH THE PILOT EXPERIENCED UNCOMMANDED ROLL DIVERGENCE. THE AIRCRAFT WAS AT APPROXIMATELY 240 KNOTS, CLEAN CONDITION, AND POWER WAS REDUCED AT THE TIME OF THE OCCURRENCE. THE AIRCRAFT WAS FOLLOWING AN MD-80 WHEN THE EVENT OCCURRED. THE FIRST PILOT WAS AT THE CONTROLS WHEN THE UNCOMMANDED ROLLS OCCURRED, HOWEVER, THE CAPTAIN ASSUMED CONTROL EARLY DURING THE SEQUENCE. IT WAS NOTED THAT THE AUTOPILOT ALTITUDE HOLD WAS ENGAGED. THE INITIAL DIVERGENCE WAS A 20 DEGREE RIGHT ROLL. AS THE RIGHT ROLL WAS DEVELOPING THE PILOT APPLIED A LEFT CORRECTION, AND THE AIRCRAFT ROLLED 30 DEGREES LEFT. THE PILOT THEN APPLIED RIGHT RUDDER WHICH RESULTED IN THE WINGS COMING TO THE LEVEL ATTITUDE. AN EXAMINATION OF THE FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM FAILED TO REVEAL ANY ANOMALIES.
Probable cause
ENCOUNTER WITH WAKE TURBULENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95IA083
- Event ID
- 20001207X02855
- Case number
- FTW95IA083
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 96aa9bc80894fc63045a03551d347e8b0dcd641d854bc09ca91ff18473d411af; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:04:48.618Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N326SW; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, SWAA.