Southwest Airlines engine explosion linked to prior accident

A female passenger died after she was nearly sucked from the cabin of a Southwest Airlines flight travelling from New York to Dallas on Tuesday.

Investigators say there was a fault with the engine's fan blades - the cause of the incident two years ago.

US aviation authorities are to order inspections of similar jet engines.

Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, a Boeing 737 which was carrying 149 people, was forced to make an emergency landing at Philadelphia airport on Tuesday following a fault with one of its CFM56-7B engines.
An initial investigation found evidence of metal fatigue where a fan blade had broken off, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

A similar incident was recorded in 2016 involving a Southwest flight that landed safely in Florida.
Fan blades that have undergone a certain number of flights will have to be given ultrasonic tests, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said.

It added that the "airworthiness directive", which will require inspections of a large number of CFM56-7B engines, would be issued within the next two weeks.
The CFM56-7B engine is in use on more than 8,000 Boeing 737 planes worldwide, the manufacturer says.

Last year, the FAA estimated that some 220 of these engines would require testing, having carried out a certain number of flights.

On Wednesday, other airlines that use planes



fitted with the CFM56-7B engine, including United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, said they had begun inspecting some of their aircraft.
NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt told reporters that a fan blade had broken off due to metal fatigue and that a second fracture had been recorded about halfway along its length.

He could not say if the incident indicated a fleet-wide issue with the Boeing 737-700.
Mr Sumwalt also said a casing on the engine was meant to contain any parts that come loose but, due to the speed, the metal was able to penetrate the shell.

The FAA did not say how many engines would be inspected. It said that any fan blades that failed the inspection would have to be replaced.

In 2016, a Southwest Airlines flight made a safe emergency landing in Florida after a fan blade separated from a similar CFM engine.

Debris ripped a hole more than a foot long in the fuselage of the jet above the left wing, causing cabin decompression. An investigation into that incident also found signs of metal fatigue, according to the NTSB.
They were developed by French-US joint venture CFM International, which says it is the "world's leading supplier of jet engines for single-aisle aircraft".

CFM's parent companies are sending 40 technicians to help Southwest inspect engines. French officials have also said they are travelling to the US to assist with the investigation.