Southwest oopsie - ‘woman partially sucked out of window’

Failure containment is a big part of certification for these engines, this should never happen. RIP to the person who died.
 
PaulS said:
Failure containment is a big part of certification for these engines, this should never happen. RIP to the person who died.
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so....how does one design and engine to not burp out chards and shrapmill?
 
PaulS said:
Failure containment is a big part of certification for these engines, this should never happen. RIP to the person who died.
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Does this look familiar? This happened almost 2 years ago. Same side, same engine, same airline, and almost the same damage as what happened today. I have a feeling there will be a few groundings here soon.


blownengine.JPG
 
SOB8604 said:
NTSB just put out their "b-roll" footage, some close ups of the engine.

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Surprisingly (to me, anyway), there's only one blade I see as missing. I would've expected more.
 
azblackbird said:
Does this look familiar? This happened almost 2 years ago. Same side, same engine, same airline, and almost the same damage as what happened today. I have a feeling there will be a few groundings here soon.


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Yeah, I do find that pretty ironic. Might be more at play here than we realize. This will be interesting to follow.
 
PaulS said:
Did they figure out a cause for that one? I forget.
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I never heard anything, but my guess is there's some serious metal fatigue going on somewhere for both of those engines to suffer basically the same kind of failure. Even the blow up over a year ago threw shrapnel into the fuselage. Didn't kill anybody, but it easily could have.
 
From a 2016 article:

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at aviation-research firm Teal Group, said advances in materials and manufacturing have made uncontained engine failures like the one on the Southwest jet extremely rare, and both the Boeing 737 and the CFM engine have good records.
“Given the experience we have had with this aircraft and this engine, the odds of a systemic problem are basically nil,” Aboulafia said. He said it’s not necessary to inspect every CFM fan blade on all 737s unless the NTSB decides otherwise after completing its investigation.

If this most recent incident was due to the same type of failure, he might want to reconsider.

It could also be possible aggravating circumstances in any lawsuit. Too early to really say but it doesn’t look good on first blush.
 
Things change, many airlines have their own maintenance and the FAA allows parts from non original manufacturers. Is that a bad thing, not necessarily. I'm pretty sure this is a replacement blade for the front fan of that motor. This one claims to be lighter than the original. Don't know if these were in this engine, doesn't matter. But this is an example of how subtle changes can and are made to these machines. There certainly can be issues that are part of the original design/manufacture, or they could be from changes to that design or maintenance performed. It always amazes me these engines are reliable as they are, a big part of it is the diligence and quite frankly, the anal nature of the maintenance and screening done with these engines. Unfortunately the resulting reliability can be an impetus to relax the standards that make them so safe in the interest of financial efficiency, where circular reasoning is used that the engines are so reliable steps can be skipped. Who knows if that is a causal factor here, but it is definitely something that should be in the forefront of thought for the people running these or any engine where it's function can mean life or death for it's passengers.

http://www.sjap.nl/new-design-fan-blade-platform-interchangeability-737-678900/
 
Shepherd said:
They need pounds because the aircraft may be too heavy to land.
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I believe it’s more so they know what they might be dealing with fuel wise if there is a fire. Pretty sure they don’t know what the max landing weight is of all the different types. If we have to land overweight due to an emergency it’s not a real big deal. Maintenance has an inspection to perform and that’s about it.
 
Given the amount of missing material, there is a good chance the missing blade was a result and not a cause. Several other blades were warped, probably from shrapnel.

I cannot imagine yet what would cause the front end of the nacelle (inlet cowl) to detach that way.
 
bflynn said:
Given the amount of missing material, there is a good chance the missing blade was a result and not a cause. Several other blades were warped, probably from shrapnel.

I cannot imagine yet what would cause the front end of the nacelle (inlet cowl) to detach that way.
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Ya, wondering the same thing
 
Mtns2Skies said:
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The crews voices changed noticeably when their understanding of the issue changed from an “engine out” to holes in the plane and injured passengers.
 
denverpilot said:
The passenger died. First fatality on a US carrier since 2000.
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I'm thinking it's not that long ago....we did have Asianna accident at SFO a few years ago that produced fatals. Ok...it wasn't a US Carrier....but it was on US soil. Before that .....there was Colgan Air. Feb. 12, 2009 — Colgan Air Flight 3407 was flying from Newark, N.J., to Buffalo, N.Y., when it crashed into a house in Clarence, N.Y. All 49 individuals on the plane were killed, along with one of the residents of the house

Asiana Airlines Flight 214

HL7742, the aircraft involved in the accident, photographed on arrival to Hong Kong International Airport on July 31, 2011
Accident
Date July 6, 2013
Summary Impact with seawall on final approach due to pilot error[1]
Site San Francisco International Airport
17px-WMA_button2b.png
37°36′48″N 122°21′52″WCoordinates:
17px-WMA_button2b.png
37°36′48″N 122°21′52″W
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing 777-28EER
Operator Asiana Airlines
Registration HL7742
Flight origin Incheon International Airport
Destination San Francisco International Airport
Passengers 291
Crew 16
Fatalities 3
Injuries 187
Survivors 304
Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was a scheduled transpacific passenger flight from Incheon International Airportnear Seoul, South Korea, to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in the United States. On the morning of Saturday, July 6, 2013, the Boeing 777-200ER crashed on final approach into SFO.
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April 17, 2017! If they looked at it a year ago they should have been able to prevent this from happening!
 
On a serious note, back in 77 I gave basic private pilot instruction to a high school student who went on to become a navel aviator. He retired about ten year and now flies 737's for Southwest. I'm sure at that level, a pilot has seen just about everything.
 
Similar accident only with the MD88’s engines being so close to the fuse, far more shrapnel. Had one that occurred around 1999 at SAN on departure also. Think it was a MD80/88 that left parts on the runway and just barely limped over to Miramar to land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_1288
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
didn't matter.....blunt force trauma to the head while belted in has the same effect.
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Agreed, but being sucked out the window certainly makes the situation much worse. It will be interesting to see if she had her belt on. Even if she hadn't been wearing her belt though, this is in no way her fault, may she RIP.
 
SkyDog58 said:
If this most recent incident was due to the same type of failure, he might want to reconsider.
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Exactly. From the photo I saw this morning (with the NTSB standing next to the engine) there appears to be only a single fan blade missing. Rest of it appears intact.
 
That blade is spinning 5,100 rpm on a 60" circle. A tremendous amount of energy there.
 
Fearless Tower said:
How does a single fan blade (which based on the latest NTSB photos appears to be the case with SWA 1380) cause that kind of catastrophic damage?
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It shouldn’t. The Containment ring is certified by the FAA to contain a single failed blade at max power. The requirement IIRC is a failure of the blade at the root above the attachment.

Either the containment ring is improperly placed/designed, the blade failed in the attachment (in which case I suspect the adjacent blades are to likely to come from together), or something else went wrong. As this is the second such uncontained problem on SWA 737/CFM-56, I predict that an ultrasonic blade inspection won’t be the answer.

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
It shouldn’t. The Containment ring is certified by the FAA to contain a single failed blade at max power. The requirement IIRC is a failure of the blade at the root above the attachment.

Either the containment ring is improperly placed/designed, the blade failed in the attachment (in which case I suspect the adjacent blades are to likely to come from together), or something else went wrong. As this is the second such uncontained problem on SWA 737/CFM-56, I predict that an ultrasonic blade inspection won’t be the answer.

Cheers
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I believe they were performing ultrasonic tests on the blades after the last incident.
 
I may be dreaming here but wasn't there a thread on here (or maybe BT) a year or two ago that was discussing liability reasons for people to fly commercial vs private (jet, turbo prop, GA). The reason I thought of this was that I thought I remembered someone talking about business execs (maybe Wells fargo specifically?) and why they used commercial? Again, may be dreaming???? but wondering if anyone else remembered such a thread.
 
arkvet said:
I may be dreaming here but wasn't there a thread on here (or maybe BT) a year or two ago that was discussing liability reasons for people to fly commercial vs private (jet, turbo prop, GA). The reason I thought of this was that I thought I remembered someone talking about business execs (maybe Wells fargo specifically?) and why they used commercial? Again, may be dreaming???? but wondering if anyone else remembered such a thread.
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From an pure statistical standpoint, Part 121 aviation has the safest record per passenger seat mile. Part 91 private and 135 charter operations have a higher incident rate per seat mile.
 
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