Southwest airlines news 201812/29/2023 Since the deadly flight, widespread inspections have turned up eight other fan blades on similar CFM engines that also had cracks. That process was still underway when the fatal accident occurred nearly two years later. Rather than order immediate inspections of fan blades after the 2016 incident, the FAA began a slower process for drafting a regulation and getting public comment before enacting it. "We determined early that we would require some corrective action in that it was an unsafe condition," an FAA expert on engines, Christopher Spinney, testified on Wednesday, "but we also determined we had some time." CFM and federal regulators considered the Florida incident an aberration. Wednesday's hearing in Washington focused on design and inspection of fan blades on the engine, made by CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric and France's Safran S.A.Īn official from CFM defended the design and testing of fan blades like the one that snapped on the Southwest plane as it flew high above Pennsylvania, triggering an engine breakup that flung debris like shrapnel into the plane.Īfter the fatal accident, CFM recommended the use of frequent and more sophisticated tests using ultrasound or electrical currents.Īnother Southwest jet had suffered a similar blade-related engine breakup in 2016 over Florida. Eight other passengers, including at least one of the men who helped pull Riordan back in the window, suffered minor injuries. The passenger in the window seat, Jennifer Riordan, was fatally injured - the first death on a U.S. Pilots Tammie Jo Shults and Darren Ellisor landed the crippled Boeing 737 in Philadelphia. "She told them that they were going to make it," an investigator wrote. Fernheimer said she squeezed their hands. Passengers asked if they were going to die. The paramedic and a nurse took turns at CPR. They tried a defibrillator but it indicated that there was no shock. A paramedic laid the woman across a row of seats and began chest compressions. Fernheimer said when she looked out the window, she could see that one of the plane's engines was shattered, and there was blood on the outside of the aircraft.įlight attendants asked for medical volunteers. The flight attendants told investigators at least one of the male passengers put his arm out of the window and wrapped it around the woman's shoulder to help pull her back in. The harrowing details from the April 17 fatal flight were released for the first time as the National Transportation Safety Board began a hearing Wednesday into the engine failure on Southwest Flight 1380, which carried 144 passengers and five crew members. They described being unable to bring the woman back in the plane until two male passengers stepped in to help. When flight attendant Rachel Fernheimer got to row 14, she saw a woman strapped in her lap belt but with her head, torso and arm hanging out a broken window.įernheimer grabbed one of the woman's legs while flight attendant Seanique Mallory grabbed her lower body. Smoke began to fill the cabin, and flight attendants rushed row by row to make sure all passengers could get oxygen from their masks. There was a loud bang, and suddenly the Southwest Airlines jet rolled sharply to the left.
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