NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
Air Carrier B737-800 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence from preceding aircraft just before touchdown at DFW.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
Weather was VFR and clear. Turned by Approach Control onto base and final for [Runway] 35R very close to the aircraft ahead, about 2.5 to 2.75 miles ahead. Slowed to final approach speed of 148 kts. The aircraft ahead just cleared runway as we descended through 150 ft. In flare, we hit wake turbulence and did go-around. Incidentally, the exact same thing happened the prior day when we had to do go-around on Runway 17L at DFW, same scenario. I spoke to DFW Tower and Approach supervisors. Since east side DFW down to 2 runways, the controllers are getting spacing wrong. Also, I don’t think many controllers realize the B737 approach speeds are about 7 to 10 kts higher than most other transport category aircraft. Suggestion: Make controllers aware of higher 737 approach speeds and increase spacing!
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Environment - Non Weather Related · Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Procedure
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.