Did third person in cockpit distract wayward Southwest pilots?

DALLAS -- A third person in the cockpit of a Southwest Airlines plane that landed at the wrong Missouri airport was a company dispatcher who had authority to be there, airline officials said Tuesday.

The airline and federal officials say they're continuing to investigate why the Southwest Boeing 737 with 124 passengers headed for the main airport in Branson, Mo., instead landed several miles away at a smaller airport with a runway roughly half as long.

The two pilots, each with at least 12 years at Southwest, were placed on paid leave after Sunday's flight. The airline said Tuesday that the dispatcher also has been placed on paid leave.

It's not uncommon for airline employees to sit in the jumpseat with the pilots' permission, but investigators are likely to consider whether the dispatcher's presence distracted the pilots. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board seized the plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - the so-called black box.

NTSB investigators plan to interview both pilots, but nothing has been scheduled, board spokesman Keith Holloway said.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a member of a Senate aviation subcommittee, wrote Tuesday to Federal Aviation Administration head Michael Huerta and demanded a thorough investigation, saying "the flying public and residents surrounding every commercial airport in the country deserve answers."

No one was injured in the landing at a small airport built for light jets and private planes, but passengers smelled burning rubber as the pilots braked hard to stop near the end of the runway, which gives way to a steep drop-off. The manager of the Taney County Airport, which opened in 1970 and doesn't have a control tower, said no 737 had ever landed there.