A Southwest Airlines flight out of Albuquerque made an emergency landing Monday afternoon after a windshield cracked, forcing the crew to divert the plane to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The airline said Flight 2665 landed uneventfully.
Passenger George Gonzales captured a photo of the shattered cockpit window and said the pilots told people over the intercom that something had happened and they needed to make an emergency landing. Gonzales said nothing struck the aircraft and that the windshield started cracking before it exploded.
“They mentioned, you know, nothing struck the aircraft, it was just the windshield started cracking, and then it just exploded, so credit to the pilots for landing the plane and getting us down safely,” Gonzales said. His account matched the broad outline given by Southwest, which said the flight diverted safely to Tulsa because of a windshield crack.
The incident matters because it unfolded in the air on a routine trip and ended with a precautionary diversion rather than a worse outcome. Southwest said customers were later reaccommodated to Baltimore on another aircraft, and the airline added that nothing is more important than the safety of its customers and employees.
The flight’s path now leaves a simple but important answer for passengers: the aircraft was brought down safely, the cabin was not left to a more serious emergency, and the trip continued only after the airline put people on another plane. For travelers watching southwest airlines news, the key fact is that the crack prompted a diversion, not a disaster.
