THE fan blade which broke off a Southwest Airlines engine was supposed to be contained by protective shielding. It wasn’t. Instead, debris ripped a hole in the side of the plane, leading to the death of a passenger.
A PRELIMINARY examination of the blown jet engine of the Southwest Airlines plane that set off a terrifying chain of events and left a businesswoman hanging half outside a shattered window showed evidence of “metal fatigue”.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, one of the engine’s fan blades had separated from the point where it joined the rotating hub before bursting through containment measures, sending debris spearing into the body of the aircraft.
Passengers scrambled to save the woman from getting sucked out the window that had been smashed by debris. She later died, and seven others were injured. The pilots of the twin-engine Boeing 737 bound from New York to Dallas with 149 people aboard put the aircraft into a dive in order to provide breathable air for passengers before making an emergency landing in Philadelphia. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and passengers said their prayers and braced for impact.
The dead woman was identified as Jennifer Riordan, a Wells Fargo bank executive and mother of two from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The seven other victims suffered minor injuries.
A piece of the engine was later found nearly 100km away on the ground in Pennsylvania.
METAL FATIGUE
In a late night news conference, NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said the number 13 fan blade was separated and missing from the engine. The blade broke off from the point where it would come into the hub and there was evidence of metal fatigue, Sumwalt said.
High resolution photographs of the break-point have already been sent to laboratories for analysis.
The engine will be examined further to understand what caused the failure. The investigation is expected to take 12 to 15 months.
“There’s a ring around the engine that is meant to contain the engine pieces when this happens,” said John Goglia, a former NTSB member. “In this case it didn’t. That’s going to be a big focal point for the NTSB - why didn’t (the ring) do its job?”
Had several engines fail on me in flight, but never one torch up and separate blades. Excellent design and structural work by #Boeing kept that bird intact and the passengers alive. #SouthwestAirlines pilots did a pretty good job as well. pic.twitter.com/JWYspp7kIo
— Chris Harmer (@Navyharmer) April 17, 2018
As a precaution, Southwest said Tuesday night that it would inspect similar engines in its fleet over the next 30 days.
The jet’s CFM56-7B engines were made by CFM International, jointly owned by General Electric and Safran Aircraft Engines of France. CFM said in a statement that the CFM56-7B has had “an outstanding safety and reliability record” since its debut in 1997.
Last year, the engine maker and the Federal Aviation Administration instructed airlines to make ultrasonic inspections of the fan blades of engines like those on the Southwest jet. The FAA said the move was prompted by a report of a fan blade failing and hurling debris. A Southwest spokeswoman said the engine that failed Tuesday was not covered by that directive, but the airline announced it would speed up ultrasonic inspections of fan blades of its CFM56-series engines anyway.
MOTHER IDENTIFIED AS DEAD PASSENGER
Jennifer Riordan, 43, was the only passenger to have died on the doomed plane, according to her former employer.
In a recording of conversations between the cockpit and air traffic controllers, an unidentified crew member reported that there was a hole in the plane and “someone went out.” passenger Alfred Tumlinson, of Corpus Christi, Texas, said. A man in a cowboy hat rushed forward a few rows to grab the woman and pull her back in.
“She was out of the plane. He couldn’t do it by himself, so another gentleman came over and helped to get her back in the plane, and they got her,” he said. Passengers struggled to somehow plug the hole while giving the badly injured woman CPR.
The mother-of-two, who had been married to her husband Michael for 20 years, reportedly died from her injuries, which are unknown at this stage, according to KOAT Action 7 News.
NM Broadcasters, a New Mexico television and radio broadcasting company, claimed to be Mrs Riordan’s former employer in a tweet about her death.
Our hearts are heavy with the news of the death of Jennifer Riordan today. Jennifer was a UNM graduate in the C&J department as well as a former NMBA Board member and NMBA Scholarship winner. Our thoughts and prayers are with Jennifer's family. pic.twitter.com/Achkah4XBZ
— NM Broadcasters (@NMBA02) April 17, 2018
“Our hearts are heavy with the news of the death of Jennifer Riordan today,” the tweet read.
Mrs Riordan was most recently the vice president of community relations at a financial services company called Wells Fargo in Albuquerque, while her husband was previously the COO of the City of Albuquerque.
It is understood the long-term couple have two young children, a son and a daughter.
Riordan’s Twitter account shows she tweeted on Monday about her stay at a hotel in New York during a ‘business’ trip.
She described herself in her bio as: “@wellsfargo proud Team Member. Wife, mom of two, baseball fan, wine and coffee lover, passionate about my community.”
PASSENGERS SPEAK OF HORROR ORDEAL
American man Matt Tranchin, who spoke to 3AW Radio Melbourne, said after the engine exploded there was “sheer panic” on board.
“As soon as the explosion happened the oxygen mask dropped and imagine that.
“There was a tremendous amount of blood.
“To make matters worse, there really wasn’t any instruction. There was a lot of just panic and confusion. I will say the pilot did an incredible job through it all. We landed and it was as soft as you would think a landing like that could even be. We were incredibly thrilled that we had the pilot that we had, but it was sheer panic throughout the entire experience.”
http://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...g/news-story/6168a8db91d307f2364170fb12005281
