An Alaska Airlines flight was forced to divert after a red-faced pilot admitted he was ‘not qualified’ to land.
Flight 3491, operating under Alaska’s partner SkyWest, took off from San Francisco bound for Jackson Hole, Wyoming on August 8.
But before he could make his descent, the pilot announced he would need to divert to Salt Lake City, Utah, ‘due to me not having the proper qualifications’ according to passengers on the plane.
Tracking data from FlightAware shows the aircraft heading to Jackson Hole, before circling a few times and jetting off to Salt Lake City 290 miles away.
Jackson Hole Airport is a notoriously tricky airport to land at due to its mountainous elevation, short runway and wind shear conditions which all mean it has extra requirements for pilots.
An Alaska Airlines flight was forced to divert from Jackson Hole Airport to Salt Lake City after a red-faced pilot admitted he was ‘not qualified’ to land
Some pilots may only have the clearance to land in ceiling and visibility unlimited conditions, known as CAVU.
Following the embarrassing admission, the pilot reportedly did a ‘walk of shame’ off the plane to collect his bag from the back of the aircraft, Cowboy State Daily reports.
One passenger took to Reddit to detail the bizarre experience, stating that they and the other travelers were then left to wait on the tarmac while a new pilot was sourced.
‘Overall we landed about 3 hours later than we were supposed to, because of an unqualified pilot?’ the passenger speculated.
‘Is flying into Jackson like a Level 10 final boss sort of thing?’
SkyWest told Cowboy State Daily the diversion was due to a paperwork mix-up.
‘[Flight 3491] landed for a short time in Salt Lake City to correct a paperwork error related to the flight crew,’ a spokesman said.
‘The flight continued to Jackson Hole after a delay while a new pilot was secured to operate the flight.
ackson Hole Airport is a notoriously tricky airport to land at, nestled at an elevation of more than 6,451 feet within the Teton Range
The pilot took off from San Francisco Airport without a hitch bound for Wyoming but could not make its descent as scheduled
‘All pilots involved were qualified to fly and land the aircraft; the flight diverted from Jackson Hole due to an internal administrative error and out of abundance of caution.’
Jackson Hole Airport is nestled at an elevation of more than 6,451 feet within the Teton Range.
Its challenging approach means it has extra requirements including a Special Pilot in Command qualification and a SAAT level four rating which requires a more experience copilot.
Others speculated that poor weather conditions could mean that while ordinarily the pilot would have been able to land, he did not have the relevant experience to do so in less than ideal conditions.
FlightAware data shows stormfronts in the area near Jackson Hole at the flight’s scheduled landing time.
Flight 3491 was operating under Alaska’s partner SkyWest on August 8
But the passenger who shared their experience claimed this was not was communicated at the time.
‘To my recollection, ALL that we were given was “the pilot does meet the qualifications to land at this airport” — nothing about safety or weather was announced,’ the customer said.
However, the passenger did acknowledge that the eventual landing several hours later was, ‘the bumpiest landing in the descent I’ve ever experienced’.