Qualla: Southwest Airlines Flight 2294

Southwest Airlines Flight 2294: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NTSB investigator(s), Public domain. About forty minutes into Southwest Airlines Flight 2294 from Nashville to Baltimore on the afternoon of July 13, 2009, the Boeing 737-3H4 was cruising at 35,000 feet when the cabin altitude warning sounded in the cockpit. The pressure was dropping rapidly. Oxygen masks fell from the overheads. Passengers later described a loud rushing of wind from above. There was, in fact, a football-sized hole torn through the aluminum skin on the top of the fuselage above row 16. The captain executed an emergency descent and diverted to Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, the nearest field with a runway long enough to take a 737. The aircraft landed safely. Nobody was seriously hurt. But the National Transportation Safety Board investigation that followed would lead to a fleet-wide change in how aging 737 Classic aircraft were inspected for metal fatigue.

Image: NTSB investigator(s) | Public domain

Southwest Airlines Flight 2294: Forty Minutes In

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NTSB investigator(s), Public domain. Flight 2294 departed Nashville at 4:05 p.m. Central Daylight Time (5:05 p.m. Eastern) with 126 passengers and 5 crew members on board. The aircraft, a Boeing 737-300 with manufacturer's serial number 26602, was about fifteen years old and had accumulated some 42,500 flight cycles...

Image: NTSB investigator(s) | Public domain

Southwest Airlines Flight 2294: The Descent and the Diversion

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NTSB investigator(s), Public domain. Emergency descents from cruise altitude in a depressurized airliner follow a standard procedure: get the airplane down to about 10,000 feet as quickly as possible, where the passengers no longer need supplemental oxygen, and divert to the nearest suitable airport. Yeager Airport ...

Image: NTSB investigator(s) | Public domain

Southwest Airlines Flight 2294: The Investigation

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NTSB investigator(s), Public domain. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation, recorded as NTSB case number DCA09FA065, determined that the skin separation had been caused by metal fatigue. Specifically, the aluminum lap joint at the top of the fuselage had developed widespread fatigue cracking along t...

Image: NTSB investigator(s) | Public domain

Southwest Airlines Flight 2294: After the Hole

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NTSB investigator(s), Public domain. Less than two years later, on April 1, 2011, an almost identical incident occurred on Southwest Airlines Flight 812 - another 737-3H4, another mid-fuselage skin separation, another emergency landing (this time at Yuma, Arizona). The pattern made the FAA act decisively. The agency...

Image: NTSB investigator(s) | Public domain