INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday it would order inspection of some 220 jet engines after investigators said a broken fan
blade touched off an engine explosion on a Southwest Airlines flight, shattering a window and killing a passenger.The order, called an
air-worthiness directive, would require an ultrasonic inspection within the next six months of the fan blades on all CFM56-7B engines that
have accrued a certain number of takeoffs.The CFM56 engine on Southwest flight 1380 blew apart over Pennsylvania on Tuesday, about 20
minutes after the Dallas-bound flight left New York's LaGuardia Airport with 149 people on board.The explosion sent shrapnel ripping into
the fuselage of the Boeing 737-700 plane and shattered a window.Bank executive Jennifer Riordan, 43, was killed when she was partially
pulled through a gaping hole next to her seat in row 14 as the cabin suffered rapid decompression
Fellow passengers were able to pull her back inside but she died of her injuries later on Tuesday.Philadelphia's medical examiner ruled that
the cause of death was blunt trauma to the head, neck and torso, and ruled the death an accident, spokesman Jim Garrow said. Investigators
on scene examining damage to the engine of the Southwest Airlines plane (Reuters)"As captain and first officer of the crew of five who
worked to serve our customers aboard Flight 1380 yesterday, we all feel we were simply doing our jobs
Our hearts are heavy," Captain Tammie Jo Shults and First Officer Darren Ellisor said in a statement released by the airline.Shults and
Ellisor said they were focused on working with investigators and would not be speaking to the media.Earlier on Wednesday, National
Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt told a news conference that the incident began when one of the engine's 24 fan blades
Sumwalt said investigators found that the blade had suffered metal fatigue at the point of the break.Sumwalt said he could not yet say if
the incident, the first deadly airline accident in the United States since 2009, pointed to a fleet-wide issue in the Boeing 737-700."We
want to very carefully understand what was the result of this problem, and as I mentioned a few minutes ago, I'm very concerned about this
particular event," Sumwalt said at the news conference at the Philadelphia airport."To be able to extrapolate that to the entire fleet, I'm
not willing to do that right now."Southwest crews were inspecting similar engines the airline had in service, focusing on the 400 to 600
oldest of the CFM56 engines, made by a partnership of France's Safran and General Electric, according to a person with knowledge of the
It was the second time that kind of engine had failed on a Southwest jet in the past two years, prompting airlines around the world to step
up inspections.A National Transportation Safety Board inspection crew was also combing over the Boeing 737-700 for signs of what caused the
engine to explode.Sumwalt said the fan blade, after suffering metal fatigue where it attached to the engine hub, suffered a second fracture
about halfway along its length
Pieces of the plane were found in rural Pennsylvania by investigators who tracked them on radar
The metal fatigue would not have been observable by looking at the engine from the outside, Sumwalt said. The damaged Southwest Airlines
plane being examined in Philadelphia (Reuters)The FAA said late on Wednesday it would finalize the airworthiness directive it had proposed
in August within the next two weeks.Although the FAA said the directive would apply to about 220 engines, airlines said that because fan
blades may have been repaired and relocated, it would affect a far greater number.The jet was traveling at 190 miles per hour (305 kph) when
it made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport, according to Sumwalt, much faster than the typical 155-mile-per-hour
touchdown.Passengers described scenes of panic as a piece of shrapnel from the engine shattered a plane window, almost sucking Riordan
out."The window had broken and the negative pressure had pulled her outside the plane partially," Peggy Phillips, a registered nurse who was
on the plane, told WFAA-TV in Dallas
"Two wonderful men they managed to get her back inside the plane, and we laid her down and we started CPR."Riordan was a Wells Fargo
banking executive and well-known community volunteer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the company said."My last few moments"Videos posted on
social media showed passengers grabbing for oxygen masks and screaming as the plane, piloted by Shults, a former U.S
Navy fighter pilot, prepared for the descent into Philadelphia."All I could think of in that moment was, I need to communicate with my loved
ones," passenger Marty Martinez told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday
During the incident, he logged on to the in-flight Wi-Fi to send messages to his family."I thought, these are my last few moments on Earth
and I want people to know what happened," said Martinez, who live-streamed on Facebook images of passengers in oxygen masks as the plane
made a bumpy descent into Philadelphia.Southwest Airlines experienced an unrelated safety incident early on Wednesday when a Phoenix-bound
flight was forced to land at the Nashville airport shortly after takeoff because of a bird strike.The airline expected to wrap up its
inspection of the engines it was targeting in about 30 days.The GE-Safran partnership that built the engine said it was sending about 40
technicians to help with Southwest's inspections.Pieces of the engine including its cowling - the smooth metal exterior that covers its
inner workings - were found about 60 miles (97 km) from Philadelphia airport, Sumwalt said
The investigation could take 12 to 15 months to complete.In August 2016, a Southwest flight made a safe emergency landing in Pensacola,
Florida, after a fan blade separated from the same type of engine and debris ripped a hole above the left wing
That incident prompted the U.S
Federal Aviation Administration to propose last year that similar fan blades undergo ultrasonic inspections and be replaced if they
failed.© Thomson Reuters 2018(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
