Woman Dies In Jet Engine ‘Explosion’
Awoman has been killed and seven others needed medical treatment after an engine on a US passenger jet apparently exploded in midair. Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after a window, wings and fuselage were damaged in the incident, officials say.
In an air traffic control recording, one of the pilots can be heard saying “there is a hole and someone went out”. The last passenger death on a US commercial flight was in 2009. The Boeing 737-700 had been en route from New York’s La Guardia airport to Dallas, Texas, with 143 passengers and five crew when the incident happened on Tuesday morning. Witnesses say an engine on the plane’s left side blew, smashing a window and causing cabin depressurisation that nearly sucked another woman out of the aircraft. She was pulled back in by other passengers. The plane made a safe landing, fire officials said. The dead woman was Jennifer Riordan, a mother-of-two and bank vice-president at Wells Fargo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In the air traffic control recording released by NBC News, pilot Tammie Jo Shults is heard saying: “We have a part of the aircraft missing, so we’re going to need to slow down a bit.”
Asked if the plane is on fire, she says it is not but adds: “They said there is a hole and someone went out.”