Reuters
Federal investigators on Thursday said the engine fan blade that broke apart during a Southwest Airlines flight last month showed signs consistent with metal fatigue, a defect largely suspected by industry experts analyzing the deadly accident.
A jagged chunk of that engine part, called an inboard fan cowl, shattered a window and caused a partial loss of cabin pressure that pushed Jennifer Riordan halfway out the window. The 43-year-old mother died of multiple blunt force trauma—the first passenger fatality on a U.S. airline in nearly a decade.
The findings also uncovered that the Southwest pilots struggled to handle the plane after the engine blew apart at 32,000 feet over Pennsylvania. Investigators said the captain, Tammie Jo Shults, took over control from the co-pilot. She first asked air-traffic controllers for permission to land at the nearest airport then aimed for Philadelphia. She has been widely credited with saving the lives of the remaining passengers and crew.
Shults and co-pilot Darren Ellisor, both former military pilots, haven’t talked publicly about their dramatic landing. They and other crew members and a few passengers met President Donald Trump in the White House this week, the Associated Press reported.
In its update, the NTSB said the other blades in the engine on the Boeing 737 were nicked during the accident but showed no signs of cracking. Investigators said they looked at Southwest maintenance records, which indicated that the fan blades in the failed engine had made more than 32,000 flights and more than 10,000 since being overhauled in November 2012.
Since the April accident, the Federal Aviation Administration has announced heightened inspections of fan blades in Boeing 737 engines, which are made by CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and France’s Safran SA CFM first recommended more inspections using ultrasound and electrical currents after an engine broke apart on another Southwest plane in 2016, the AP reported. No one was injured in that incident.
Southwest executives said the company has inspected more than 25,000 blades in the airline’s fleet and found only one other that showed signs of cracking.
A Southwest plane made headlines again this week when one layer of a three-layer window cracked in flight. The pilots landed the plane safely in Cleveland. Southwest shares are trading down some 20% so far in 2018.
Passengers who are curious about the age of the aircraft they’re flying in can check the Federal Aviation Administration’s registry or the website Planespotters.net.