Jet fan inspections ordered
Woman killed by blunt trauma to head, neck
PHILADELPHIA — U. S. airline regulators said Wednesday that they will order inspections on engine fan blades like the one involved in fatal failure that killed a woman in a plane that made an emergency landing in Philadelphia.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it will issue a directive in the next two weeks to require ultrasonic inspections of CFM56- 7B engines after reaching a certain number of takeoffs.
The FAA decision comes nearly a year after the engine’s manufacture recommended that airlines using certain CFM56 engines conduct ultrasonic inspections to look for cracks.
Federal investigators said that initial findings show that Tuesday’s emergency was caused by a fan blade that snapped off, leading to debris hitting the Southwest Airlines plane and a woman being partially blown out a window. She later died.
Metal fatigue — microscopic cracks that can splinter open under the kind of stress placed on jetliners and their engines — was also blamed for an engine failure on a Southwest plane in Florida in 2016.
That led manufacturer CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and France’s Safran SA, to recommend last June that airlines conduct the inspections of fan blades on many Boeing 737s.
European regulators last month required airlines flying in Europe to conduct the inspection, but the FAA had not yet required them despite proposing a similar directive last August.
Lawyer Robert Clifford, who is suing American Airlines over another engine explosion that caused a fire that destroyed the plane, said the FAA should have required the inspections — even if it meant grounding Boeing 737s.
“There is something going on with these engines,” he said, “and the statistical likelihood of additional failures exists.”
Investigators say a fan blade snapped off as Southwest Flight 1380 cruised at 500 mph high above Pennsylvania on Tuesday, setting off a catastrophic chain of events that killed a woman and broke a string of eight straight years without a fatal accident involving a U. S. airliner.
Federal investigators were still trying to determine how a window came out of the plane, killing 43- year- old Jennifer Riordan seated next to it. She was wearing a seat belt. Philadelphia’s medical examiner said Wednesday that Riordan was killed by blunt impact trauma to her head, neck and torso.
Meanwhile, pilot Tammie Jo Shults was being praised by passengers for her professionalism during the emergency.
Shults, one of the first female fighter pilots in the Navy, was at the controls when the jet landed, according to her husband, Dean Shults.
She got a round of applause from the passengers after putting the plane down safely. She walked through the aisle and talked with passengers to make sure they were OK afterward.
Friend Racheal Russo said Shults “loved” her military career and said she learned by overcoming obstacles as a woman in a maledominated field.