Southwest Airlines

Is Southwest safe to fly?

Yes. In 55 years, one passenger has died in a Southwest accident: a woman killed when an engine failed on flight 1380 in April 2018. With more than a million flights a year, that is a very low rate. We score Southwest 77, close to United at 78 and below Delta at 84. What holds it back is not crashes but a run of near misses since 2024 that suggest pilots were too often caught out on approach.

What went wrong on flight 1380?

The 737-700 was climbing through about 32,000 feet over Pennsylvania when a fan blade in the left CFM56 engine snapped off at the root. Pieces of the engine cowling hit the fuselage and broke the window frame at row 14. The aircraft rolled 41 degrees to the left before the crew levelled it and descended. The crew landed at Philadelphia 15 minutes after the failure.

The NTSB traced the failure to a fatigue crack in the blade, and found that parts of the inlet and cowling broke away and hit the fuselage. The result was mandatory fan blade inspections across the CFM56-7B fleet that powers 737s worldwide. The same type of failure hit a Ryanair-group 737 in July 2026 (see Ryanair), without a death.

The Midway overrun and the write-offs

Southwest's most serious crew error came on 8 December 2005. Flight 1248 landed in snow at Chicago Midway, and the pilots took 18 seconds to deploy the thrust reversers. The 737-700 rolled through the airport fence and onto a street, where it hit cars at an intersection. A 6-year-old boy died. The NTSB named the late reverse thrust as the probable cause. The aircraft itself was repaired.

Four Southwest 737s have been written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary since 2000: the WN1380 aircraft, and three whose accidents killed no one: an overrun onto a road at Burbank in 2000, a nose gear collapse at New York LaGuardia in 2013 after a late flap change, and a nose gear failure during pushback at Baltimore in 2016.

The 2024 approach scares

This is where Southwest loses most points. In April 2024, a 737 MAX 8 abandoned an approach to Lihue, Kauai, in bad weather and descended to about 400 feet over the sea at more than 4,000 feet per minute before the crew recovered. In June 2024, flight 4069 came down to about 525 feet over Yukon, Oklahoma, on approach to Oklahoma City, and a controller's low-altitude alert stopped it. The FAA investigated both. A MAX 8 also had an unusual rolling motion in May 2024 that was traced to a damaged backup power control unit.

More recent events were less about the crew. On 25 July 2025, flight 1496 out of Burbank dived about 500 feet after a collision alert with another aircraft, and two flight attendants were hurt. On 17 April 2025, a 737-700 lost its right engine climbing out of Houston Hobby; after landing, the engine was on fire, passengers left by the slides and a flight attendant was seriously hurt. Runway conflicts also recur: in October 2024 a 737 was cleared to land at Long Beach with a light aircraft still on the runway and stopped about 860 feet short of it (AeroInside). Turbulence has seriously injured several Southwest flight attendants in 2024 and 2025.

One type, two generations

Every Southwest aircraft is a Boeing 737. Its 10-K lists 803 at the end of 2025: 305 737-700s averaging 20 years, 198 737-800s at 10 years and 300 737 MAX 8s at 3. A single type means every pilot and mechanic knows the aircraft deeply, which is a real safety benefit. The downside is that the oldest 737-700s are near the end of their lives and none of the fleet has the flight envelope protection of an Airbus or a 787. Southwest is waiting for the FAA to certify the 737-7 to replace the -700s.

Southwest has no regional partners. Every flight with a WN number is flown by Southwest pilots on a 737.

Tips for Southwest passengers

• Sit down and buckle up when the seat belt sign comes on, and keep it loosely fastened at cruise. Turbulence is the most common cause of injuries on Southwest, as on other US airlines.
• Check the aircraft type in the app if you care about age: "737 MAX 8" means a jet built in the last eight years; "737-700" usually means one built around 2000 to 2008.
• Leave bags behind in an evacuation. Open seating encourages people to keep bags at their feet and in the bins near them, and grabbing them slows everyone down.

How we scored it

FAA oversight and IOSA registrationIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary (90) and an accident record of one passenger death in 55 years (76) carry the score. Serious incidents (66) are the weakest factor, because of the 2024 low-altitude approaches, and the all-737 fleet (72) loses points for age and design generation.