Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 Engine Failure

[Zad]

Not nice - Debris penetrated the window causing rapid decompression and one female passenger partially sucked outside the aircraft, currently critically ill in hospital. It looks like the front fan disk of the engine is intact, and it ingested the nacelle debris.



The thing is - compare with Southwest Airlines 3472 incident in August 2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_F...



Same aircraft and 737-700 and engine type (if that's relevant)- CFM56 (GE)

[paul789]

fk - "female passenger is in critical condition with head trauma because of flying debris from the engine." Now possibly reported as having died?

[anonymous-user]

Sky news says 1 dead

[David87]

That is some insane damage and one seriously unfortunate passenger. Poor lady.

I thought 737s had a missing window specifically to stop debris from an engine failure of this type?

[Speed 3]

She was sat in 14A, not a nice way to go

[Simpo Two]

Speed 3 said:

She was sat in 14A, not a nice way to go

Given the airspeed at the time and the speed with which shrapnel must have flown out that broken window seems a long way back. You can see the blank window gap in the anticipated spot. And so much for the self-containment idea.

[Munter]

Simpo Two said:

Given the airspeed at the time and the speed with which shrapnel must have flown out that broken window seems a long way back. You can see the blank window gap in the anticipated spot. And so much for the self-containment idea.

If the problem is the cowl at the front becomes detached (same as the previous one), then what would containing the fan blades do to help?

[Simpo Two]

Munter said:

If the problem is the cowl at the front becomes detached (same as the previous one), then what would containing the fan blades do to help?

Ah yes, fair point. How/why would a cowl fail? Not fixed on properly after maintenance?

[Zad]

It will be interesting to see what actually hit the window / fuselage, whether it was a separated blade or debris from the inlet duct, and which came first. In the 2016 incident a fan blade suffered fatigue, although it seems that investigation is still on-going.

I guess the engine manufacturer's engineers around the world are going to be very busy in the coming days doing a lot of inspection and crack testing.

[SDarks]

There is currently a world wide shortage of CFM56-5B & 7B engine material required for maintenance, fan blades in particular.

Engine maintenance facility’s with CFM56 capability’s are already facing huge back logs due to this so any fault found that would require a mandatory AD would cause huge issues.

[Cold]

Lots more photos of both exterior and interior of the plane along with a short video from a passenger if you don't mind clicking a Daily Mail link.

[Evolved]

st! Just seen this thread, that’s awful, such a shame it caused the loss of life! Freakish accident!

[ATG]

According to BBC the NTSB are already saying a fan blade is missing and there is evidence of fatigue.

[Willy Nilly]

ATG said:

According to BBC the NTSB are already saying a fan blade is missing and there is evidence of fatigue.

Is this what caused the initial failure? Not that we'll know yet.

[mcdjl]

Missing a fan blade at 8 o'clock by the guys arm? Presumably a result of stuff going through it

[CrutyRammers]

ATG said:

According to BBC the NTSB are already saying a fan blade is missing and there is evidence of fatigue.

Pretty clear gap there.
Horrible incident, though sounds like the crew handled it well.

[Krikkit]

Willy Nilly said:

ATG said:

According to BBC the NTSB are already saying a fan blade is missing and there is evidence of fatigue.

Is this what caused the initial failure? Not that we'll know yet.

Probably partial separation, flailing around, then finally complete failure.

What an unlucky accident for the poor lady who died, literally one in a billion kind of luck.

I bet people will be less keen on the window today, and listen to the attendants who say at with your seatbelt on.

[Speed 3]

mcdjl said:

Presumably a result of stuff going through it

More likely to be a failure of the blade itself or the retention, if it was impact, that would have taken out more than one. Confirmed:


An NTSB 'Go Team' dispatched to Philadelphia focused on the missing Number 13 fan blade in the left engine, which had separated at the point where the blade attaches to the hub.

“Our preliminary examination of this was that there was evidence of metal fatigue where the blade separated,” says NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt.

Edited by Speed 3 on Wednesday 18th April 07:34

[mcdjl]

Speed 3 said:

mcdjl said:

Presumably a result of stuff going through it

More likely to be a failure of the blade itself or the retention, if it was impact, that would have taken out more than one.

It's an odd one though as the blade will have gone backwards yet the cowling is missing from in front of it. Unless the blade went, then the vibration did for the cowling so the two are separate events?

[Speed 3]

mcdjl said:

It's an odd one though as the blade will have gone backwards yet the cowling is missing from in front of it. Unless the blade went, then the vibration did for the cowling so the two are separate events?

Fan section components often fly forward due to the intake air pressure behaviour, thus they can go forward then up and over the wing. The AF A380 showed similar behaviour. Once the blade has seperated, the fan will be unbalanced and start virbating like hell, impacting the fan shroud and starting a trail of destruction in the nacelle and what's left of the fan.