The National Transportation Safety Board urged airlines on Wednesday to develop realistic cockpit-smoke training for pilots, after a December 2023 bird strike on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max filled the cockpit with dense smoke and left the flight crew unable to see their instruments or their emergency checklists.
The NTSB said the pilots — who safely returned the plane to New Orleans with none of the 139 people aboard injured — told investigators the situation was far more challenging than anything they had ever practiced in training. “If such an event occurred at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, the consequences could be catastrophic,” the board determined.
The Federal Aviation Administration receives reports of smoke in the cockpit almost daily, yet it does not require airlines to conduct realistic smoke-in-cockpit simulations. Most training consists only of a discussion of what to do, the NTSB noted. The FAA did not immediately respond to the new recommendation.
Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, a former United Airlines pilot, said the NTSB recommendation is essential. “Smoke in the cockpit is a very serious and time-critical emergency,” Arroyo said. “And I think creating the pilot awareness through real-life training is essential to reducing this potential safety threat.” Arroyo said pilots should practice dealing with smoke every time they return for recurrent training every nine months, to build the “muscle memory” to respond.
The December 2023 incident is not the first for Southwest’s 737 Max fleet. Nine months earlier, a bird strike after takeoff in Havana, Cuba, filled the cabin of another Southwest 737 Max with smoke. In both cases, a safety device added to the engines by CFM International — designed to limit damage after a bird strike — released oil that generated significant smoke. Air from the left engine flows directly into the cockpit on the 737 Max, and air from the right engine flows into the cabin.
Last year the NTSB urged Boeing and CFM to quickly develop a software fix for the engines to prevent smoke from entering the cockpit or cabin after a bird strike. Boeing and CFM spokesmen said the fix is still being developed. The FAA has said the repair will be required as soon as it is ready.
Southwest spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the airline is reviewing the new recommendation but is committed to ensuring its pilots can handle such emergencies and to seeing that the underlying engine flaw is fixed. “Southwest routinely evaluates and enhances pilot training as part of its robust Safety Management System,” Lunsford said, adding that the airline notified flight crews about the effects of certain malfunctions after the 2023 events and reiterated the importance of following established safety procedures.
The Airlines for America trade group said the airlines work closely with the NTSB and FAA “with a continual focus on maintaining safety as the highest priority.”