Southwest Airlines Flight Suffers Rare Dutch Roll, Causing Significant Aircraft Damage

A Southwest Airlines Boeing plane experienced a rare Dutch roll at 32,000 feet in the air, officials said.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 experienced a rare Dutch roll at 32,000 feet, causing significant damage to the aircraft and rendering it out of service, officials reported.

On May 25, Southwest flight N8825Q, carrying 175 passengers from Phoenix to Oakland, encountered the Dutch roll phenomenon, where the tail of the plane wags left and right, causing the wings to rock side to side. Despite the intense oscillations, the pilots managed to regain control and safely land the aircraft in Oakland, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). No injuries were reported.

The FAA noted that Dutch rolls, though rare, are incidents pilots are trained to counter, and modern planes are equipped with yaw dampers to combat them. “The FAA is working closely with the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) and Boeing to investigate this event,” the agency stated, adding, “We will take appropriate action based on the findings.”

Southwest flight N8825Q, a Boeing 737 carrying 175 passengers, was traveling from Phoenix to Oakland on May 25 when its tail began to wag left and right.

A preliminary FAA report identified a damaged power-control unit, which provides backup power to the rudder, as a contributing factor. Both Boeing and Southwest Airlines declined to comment on the incident but confirmed their cooperation with FAA investigators.

This incident adds to the mounting scrutiny faced by Boeing over safety concerns. The aerospace giant has been criticized for repeated technical failures, with at least 20 whistleblowers coming forward. A September 2020 report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee condemned Boeing and regulators for the “horrific culmination” of failures leading to two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.

A preliminary report from the FAA found that a power-control unit on the plane had been damaged, which provides backup power to the rudder.

In a related incident, a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX-9 in January 2024, further renewing safety concerns about Boeing aircraft.