Southwest Airlines Engine Failure Results In First Fatality On US Airline In 9 Years (heavy.com)

schwit1 shares a report from Heavy: Tammie Jo Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off, damaging a window and nearly sucking a woman out of the plane. The flight was en route to Dallas Love airport from New York City, and had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia. Shults, 56, kept her cool during an incredibly intense situation, audio from her conversation with air traffic controllers reveals, while many passengers posted on social media that they were scared these were their last moments. She, with the help of the co-pilot and the rest of the crew, landed the plane safely. The NTSB reported that there was one fatality out of 143 passengers on board. Some passengers said that someone had a heart attack during the flight, but it's not yet known if this was the fatality reported by the NTSB. The woman who died has been identified by KOAT-TV as Jennifer Riordan, 43, of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Comments

Really Bad luck

[hcs_$reboot]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dunkelfalke]

9 years for a fatality on a US airline. Uncontained engine failures happen far more often than that.
Here's one that happened just 6 months ago.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dj245]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

Turbine engineer here. While engines are definitely designed so that parts do not liberate through the casing, there are plenty of incidents where that has occurred.

And explosions (as in an undesired rapid combustion of fuel and air) are indeed very unlikely. But explosions are not the most common failure mode. Blade liberation due to defects in the blade, or due to ingested material are the most common reason for a catastrophic failure.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dj245]

Uhm no. That's exactly the opposite of how the engines are designed.

Modern jet engines are specifically designed to contain all the debris in an engine failure - in particular all the blades which are both the most energetic and most durable. They destructively test by pyrotechnicaly detaching a blade at max RPM...go google, it's fun to watch.

Something fucked up here and parts impacted the rather fragile plane...which happens, but it not the design intent. Had the engine not contained MOST of the debris they likely would not have been able to land at all.

That is certainly the design intent, but that is not how things work in the real world. There are plenty of incidents where a blade liberation has exited the casing. The destructive test regimen is likely dictated by someone (probably the US and/or other governments), and you can bet that the engine is designed to pass the test but be no stronger (to save weight). Pyrotechnically detaching a single blade also does not 100% match some actual failure modes. For example, there are several reasons why multiple blades may liberate simultaneously or nearly simultaneously, causing a severe rotor unbalance which can lead to *more* blade failures.

I'm not saying that the design and testing of these engines is inadequate, certainly it is good enough to limit real-world failures to a reasonable number. But it does not cover all cases or result in engine failure containment 100% of the time.