Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Flight Engineer; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 78; Flight Crew Total 5000; Flight Crew Type 500
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Rejected Takeoff
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Weather
During takeoff roll Tower called wind gust of direct crosswind of 50+ knots. This was a large swing in winds from prior quartering head wind call and given the rain in the area the Captain elected to conduct a low speed abort for safety reasons rather than taking the aircraft into the air and possibly exposing the aircraft and passengers to a wind shear condition. He called the abort prior to 80 knots and retarded the throttles; I was the pilot flying; I acknowledged the call; stayed on the aircraft controls and began braking; minimal brakes were used due to low speed; length of runway and next turn off distance from aircraft. As we slowed I notified Tower of abort and transferred aircraft control to Captain. Tower did query as to reason for abort and I simply stated 'winds.' We turned off runway as directed by Tower contacted ground conducted after landing checklist; taxi checklist and before takeoff checklist. We then notified Dispatcher; contacted duty pilot and eventually contacted western regional Chief Pilot and explained abort. We were cleared to proceed by Chief Pilot and departed uneventfully. I was hearing this on the radios while turning off of runway and it did not apply to us directly so I could have missed something. After excessive gust call and/or abort call I'm pretty sure at least one aircraft elected to go around due to winds. Then as we were turning off runway there was a brief discussion between other aircraft and Tower concerning the wind call and Tower indicated wind equipment might have malfunction or given erroneous reading.
During takeoff; a B737 flight crew is informed of a 50 knot wind gust 90 degrees to the runway by the Tower. The Captain elects to reject the takeoff prior to the 80 knot call. During taxi back the Tower indicated wind equipment might have malfunctioned or given an erroneous reading.