On July 22, 2013, the Boeing 737 operating the route suffered a front landing-gear collapse while landing at LaGuardia Airport, injuring 9 people on board.

[12] On July 26, 2013, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a press release disclosing its initial findings, which included: No mechanical malfunctions were found, but the nose landing gear collapsed due to stress overload.

[11] Southwest's flight-operations manual requires its pilots to abort a landing if the plane is not properly configured by the time it descends to 1,000 ft (300 m) AGL.

[12] Analyzing flight recorder data, the NTSB determined that the captain had changed the airplane's flaps from 30 to 40° at an altitude of only 500 ft (150 m).

The NTSB determined that the captain's failure to take control until the plane had descended to only 27 ft (8.2 m) "did not allow her adequate time to correct the airplane's deteriorating energy state and prevent the nose landing gear from striking the runway.

[15] The Boeing 737 involved in the accident, worth an estimated $15.5 million at the time, was found to be too extensively damaged to be repaired, so was written off as a total loss.

[5] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.