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FAA orders fan blade inspections after Southwest jet engine explosion

Published:Thursday | April 19, 2018 | 11:52 AM
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National Transportation Safety Board investigators examine damage to the engine of the Southwest Airlines plane that made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia on Tuesday, April 17, 2018. The Southwest Airlines jet blew the engine at 32,000 feet and got hit by shrapnel that smashed a window, setting off a desperate scramble by passengers to save a woman from getting sucked out. She later died, and seven others were injured. (NTSB via AP)
In this 2017 photo, Jennifer Riordan, of Albuquerque, N.M., poses for a photo in Albuquerque. Family, friends and community leaders are mourning the death of Riordan, a bank executive on a Southwest Airlines jet that blew an engine as she was flying home from a business trip to New York. (Marla Brose/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — U.S. airline regulators have ordered inspections on engine fan blades like the one that snapped off a Southwest Airlines plane and led to the death of a woman who was blown partway out a window.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement late Wednesday comes nearly a year after the engine’s manufacturer recommended the additional inspections, and a month after European regulators ordered their airlines to do the work.

Pressure for the FAA to act grew after an engine on a Southwest plane blew apart on Tuesday, showering the aircraft with debris and shattering a window.

A woman sitting next to the window was partially blown out and died of her injuries.

The plane, which was headed from New York to Dallas, made an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

Passenger Andrew Needum, a Texas firefighter, said Thursday that he was helping his family and other passengers with their oxygen masks when he heard a commotion behind him.

His wife nodded that it was OK for Needum to leave his family to assist the injured woman.

Texas rancher Tim McGinty, of Hillsboro, said Tuesday that he and Needum struggled to pull 43-year-old Jennifer Riordan back into the plane.

Needum and retired school nurse Peggy Phillips began administering CPR for about 20 minutes until the plane landed.

Federal investigators are still trying to determine how the window came out of the plane. Riordan was wearing a seat belt as she sat next to it.

Philadelphia’s medical examiner said the banking executive and mother of two from Albuquerque, New Mexico, died from blunt impact trauma to her head, neck, and torso.

Investigators said a blade that broke off mid-flight and triggered the fatal accident was showing signs of metal fatigue — microscopic cracks that can splinter open under the kind of stress placed on jetliners and their engines.

The National Transportation Safety Board also blamed metal fatigue for an engine failure on a Southwest plane in Florida in 2016.

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