Lots of misinformation leading to poorly drawn conclusions in this thread. Lots of things that someone who isn't a pilot would have no way of knowing.

I don't yet have enough information on what happened to answer all of the questions but some things are clear. Obviously pilot error but the interesting thing will be learning and understand why an appropriately trained and experienced crew made these errors so that the chance of similar incidents in the future can be reduced. Nothing particularly unusual about wrong airport landings, though. They've been happening with some regularity since the beginning of aviation.

Depends on the situation. The Atlas crew that landed at the wrong airport in Kansas in November was not fired. Much depends on the records of these crewmembers, what mistakes were made, and if appropriate procedures were followed.

Yes. They'll have to be light but it shouldn't be a problem. Max-power (which is used on very few airline flights) and a flaps-25 takeoff.

Recordings are never released--only transcripts. Since this is only an incident, I don't know if the transcripts will be released.

Those terms are not mutually exclusive. A visual approach, very likely what they were flying, is an IFR clearance. The situations in which a SWA flight would be authorized to operate VFR are very restricted and wouldn't apply in a case such as this.

No, there's no "ping". The intended runway has only an RNAV approach which gets you in the vicinity of the runway but requires a significant visual segement. The only ILS (instrument landing system) approach at either airport was on the reciprocal runway (opposite direction) at the destination airport.

Though I haven't seen this stated officially, I am very confident that they flew this as a visual approach. Once they visually acquired the (wrong) airport they would be navigating primarily by looking out the window but they should have backed that up with their navigation display (ND). The result would suggest that they did not back it up.

That makes no sense. Airports where night operations are not authorized, but are served by airlines, are very rare. Aspen is one though airlines can get exemptions for night ops with special aircrew certification. Airports don't have, or have no, "IFR". An airliner flight operates IFR from takeoff to touchdown regardless of what approaches are, or are not, available.

No way to know. Should be shortly after touchdown at the latest.

Generally speaking, anytime prior to the thrust reversers being deployed.

Whenever they have a reason to suspect that they don't know where they're going?

That was almost 17 years ago.

Confirmation bias.

Should be? As you know, it is a requirement.

What does FWB have to do with this? I've lost you.

I seriously doubt that PLK has runway remaining markers and it doesn't have a precision approach so no fixed distance markers, either.

The MALSF is on runway 32, is directional, and wouldn't have been turned on with runway 14 in use.

Not really. The longer runway was 150' wide, the shorter runway 100' wide. It is the ratio of length to width that gives us the perception of length. i.e. the narrower width makes the shorter runway looking longer than it is.

You don't need RNP. All SWA airplanes have integrated FMS. The incident airplane was a 737-700 with inertial-nav, FMS position updating via GPS and DME/DME, two large navigation displays, and the Captain had a heads-up display (HUD). All the information they needed was available to them.

There is no such alarm.

That's a rather interesting case as it was the ATC system which took them to Frankfurt. The ATC flight plan in Europe included the wrong destination and the crew had no way of knowing it. (somehow the destination was changed in the process of the flight plan being handed off from oceanic to European control) None of them were familiar with Brussels and how ATC normally routed flights into Brussels so they didn't notice the unusual handling. When the crew couldn't tune the ILS they queried ATC and ATC gave them the frequency. They (initially) believed that the frequency had changed and the NOTAM was omitted from their paperwork. Prior to landing they figured out that it was the wrong airport but, at that point, the Captain decided that the safer course of action was to land and sort it out on the ground as they had no way of knowing if their premature descent had left them with enough fuel to continue to Brussels with legal reserves.

Branson does not have its own approach control radar. The airspace is handled by Springfield approach so radar contact will be lost at a higher altitude than normal. Nothing unusual about that. I don't think that the Branson tower controller has a radar display so he's relying on the pilot's position reports until he had the aircraft in sight while Springfield approach continues to apply non-radar separation.

No. They would have descended below radar coverage as Branson doesn't have its own approach control. Even if they did, there would only be low altitude alarms if they weren't descending toward AN airport. Since there was AN airport, there would not have been an alert.

No, that is not the case on a visual approach. There was no ILS, only an RNAV approach.

They are equipped for RNAV approaches. I do not know if they have OpSpecs authorization to fly RNAV approaches.

Yes, they are. They have FMS just like the 737-700.

It's not a GPS system. It is an integrated flight management system with inertial reference with the FMS position updated by GPS and DME/DME inputs. The autoflight can track the LNAV course which is what it is doing for the majority of every flight.

But not to the runway on which they intended to land. They would have backed the visual approach up with the RNAV approach or built a visual final approach segment off the runway waypoint, not the non-existent LOC BC.