Well, if there was no snow, the kid wouldn't die. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, the plane would stop at the end on the runway if there was no snow, so I don't think we can blame the company/pilot/plane for this particular case. Simple, no snow - no outside fatality.
right but the pilot could have chosan to wait for it to clean up a little or divert or reqest a diverant runway but you are sort of right. that storm jsut hit here in bos
Problem with the diversion though, is this.
Of the airports closest to MDW that SWA services, you have STL (which was in the storm), IND (which was in the storm), BNA, MEM, CLE (perhaps too far for reserves), MCI, and OMA. As the plane came from BWI, they could have gone to those in the path of the storm and toughed it out, but it would be harder to get out of those. That storm wasn't going to clear up until the early morning, so waiting was out of the question. Unless we knew what alternate they had filed for or what they would request, we will never know. That storm went through OMA 2 days ago, and the town was socked hard. Although, I doubt this is the first of a string of incidents.
Let's also look at the field. From AirNav:
13L/31R: 5141 x 150 ft.
13C/31C: 6522 x 150 ft.
13R/31L: 3859 x 60 ft.
4L/22R: 5507 x 150 ft.
4R/22L: 6446 x 150 ft.
13R/31L, out of the question. 13C/31C is where they landed. If they had limited visibility (field was IMC), and 13C/31C had reduced RVR (which it did; R31C/3000V4500FT and decreasing as the storm passed), they could not use any other runway except 4R/22L, because of the ILS approach. With that one, they would have had a horrid crosswind component. Should they have used that runway, without knowing RVR on that, it would have been much worse than what it was. So their only other choice would be 13C with a headwind, or divert.
Until the NTSB comes out with their report, we can only speculate on what could and should have been done.
BL.