Southwest Airlines flight attendant suffers broken back in hard landing
The flight attendant was in a jump seat at the back of the Southwest Boeing 737
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A Southwest Airlines flight attendant sustained a compound fracture to a vertebra during a hard landing in California last month.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the impact of the landing was so hard that the flight attendant thought the plane had crashed.
She felt pain in her back and neck and was unable to move.
She was transported from Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport to a hospital where she was diagnosed with the injury.
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BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - OCTOBER 11: A Southwest Airlines airplane taxies from a gate at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on October 11, 2021, in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images / Getty Images)
None of the other people on board the plane were hurt.
Pilots said they were aiming for the normal touchdown zone on the relatively short runway.
The runway is about 5,700 feet long, whereas Los Angeles International Airport runways are between 8,900 and nearly 13,000 feet.
The safety officials completed the investigation without detailing the cause of the hard landing.
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A Southwest Airlines commercial aircraft approaches to land at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California U.S. January 18, 2022. (Reuters/Mike Blake / Reuters)
After the 18-year-old Boeing 737-700 taxied off the runway, the pilots were made aware of the injury.
The flight attendant was in a jump seat at the back of the plane.
Documents from the investigation were not made publicly available.
Southwest Airlines told FOX Business on Tuesday that it could not provide any specifics regarding the employee's health status out of a respect for privacy.
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"The Safety of Southwest’s Customer and Employees is always our top priority. We are concerned when any Employee is injured. We reported the matter to the NTSB in accordance with regulatory requirements and conducted an internal review of the event," the airline said.
According to The Dallas Morning News, the only other injury reported on a Southwest Airlines flight this year was a woman who broke her ankle exiting a bathroom in May.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.