Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-200 accident
Boeing 737-200 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA033
- 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
- Accident
- 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 737-200
- 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
- N73SW
- Operator
- Southwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo 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
- In flight collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Object › Bird(s)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lubbock, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS ESTABLISHED ON FINAL APPROACH FOR LANDING AT 190 KNOTS AND APPROXIMATELY 4700 FEET MSL ON A DARK NIGHT, WHEN IT ENCOUNTERED A FLOCK OF CANADIAN GEESE. ONE GOOSE PENETRATED THE PRESSURE BULKHEAD THROUGH THE RADOME. ANOTHER SPLATTERED DEBRIS OVER THE CAPTAIN'S WINDSHIELD, AND OTHERS DAMAGED FAIRINGS, WING ROOTS, AND KRUEGER FLAPS. THE FLIGHT CREW DID NOT SEE THE GEESE BEFORE IMPACT. THE FIRST OFFICER TOOK OVER THE CONTROLS FROM THE CAPTAIN AND LANDED THE AIRCRAFT WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE IN FLIGHT COLLISION WITH GEESE. A FACTOR WAS THE DARK NIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA033
- Event ID
- 20001212X18456
- Case number
- FTW92LA033
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-12-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f921dc1ef674a76b916b5b678f5eae9dc769fc3e79e5ea14ad55b42b3180c012; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:50:07.543Z.