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What we know so far about the Southwest incident
Philadelphia - A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 was forced to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia on April 17 after one of its engines had been severely damaged following the loss of a fan blade. (airlinerwatch.com) עוד...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
The question I have is did the fan blade break first or did the cowling break it?
Additionally, another Airbus 380 belonging to Quantas Airlines suffered an uncontained engine failure in mid flight. The cowling and main fan housing on all these failures contained the main fan debris for mere seconds which is long enough to keep the debris from doing major damage to the fuselage or other engines. In all of the previous examples each plane landed without further incident. A pretty good record in comparison to ten or so years back.
As late as February of this year a United Airlines Boing 777 had a catastrophic engine failure as the engine began to “fall apart in mid flight. The 777 made a safe landing and taxied to the gate under its own power. In Septemer of 2017, an Airbus 380 owned by Air France suffered a catastrophic uncontainable engine failure in route from Paris to Los Angels
As late as February of this year a United Airlines Boing 777 had a catastrophic engine failure as the engine began to “fall apart in mid flight. The 777 made a safe landing and taxied to the gate under its own power. In Septemer of 2017, an Airbus 380 owned by Air France suffered a catastrophic uncontainable engine failure in route from Paris to Los Angeles. An Airbus 380 owned by Quatas Airlines suffered a similar fate in 2010 when one of its engines again suffered a non contained engine failure. No injuries occurred with any of these flights. So the possibility of engine failures do exist and normally are not life threatening. Before better technology was introduced some fifteen years ago, these could have been fatal to all passengers on these flights. However, containment, if only for a few moments as the main blades break loose, keeps the large sections of debri from entering the cabin causing major damage to the airframe and supporting structures. It is sad that there was a loss of life with this incident but overall safety is still much better today than in the past. Especially when you consider this, a separated fan blade turning at more than 30,000 rpm can travel at twice the speed of sound and have the impact of a small bus or large truck! Fill safer now....
Was the woman who so tragically lost her life in this incident buckled in or not? If not, would her seatbelt have prevented her from being (partially) sucked out and thus possibly have saved her life?
It sounds like the passenger who was killed was buckled in, per this interview with a woman in the same row. http://kfor.com/2018/04/19/associate-professor-at-ou-plays-role-in-flight-tragedy/
By several reports I've read, she WAS buckled in. It was opined that had she not been, she very likely would have been completely pulled out of the aircraft.
From what we know, according to passengers and cabin crew, the passenger did not have her seat belt fastened. The plane was at cruising altitude therefore the “fasten seat belt” light was off. As a pilot, this is why we often suggest that while seated all passengers should remain safely fastened in their seat belt. There are a lot of unknowns in the sky’s and one bad thermo pocket can send things, and people, tumbling. Sadly, if a window is compromised the initial loss of cabin pressure can be devastating to the planes structural integrity and have the vacuum effect equivalent to that of a ping pong ball being sucked into a vacuum cleaner hose. Not a very pleasant scenario and one that occurs very, very infrequently. Though we are trained to react very rapidly to these conditions, not all situation can be contained and controlled as rapidly as we would wish. Though a life was lost, the flight crew made very aggressive decisions that may have saved many more lives. They should and have been praised for their quick lifesaving reactions.