One person dies after an engine explodes on a Southwest flight

By A.W. | WASHINGTON, DC

A SOUTHWEST AIRLINES flight became the stuff of nightmares on April 17th when a jet engine apparently exploded in mid-air and a passenger was partially sucked out of a window before being rescued by fellow flyers. The flight from New York’s LaGuardia airport was bound for Dallas, but at 11:30am, when it was near Philadelphia, the left engine blew up, according to multiple reports. Details are still unconfirmed, but according to reports by passengers and media, a piece of shrapnel from the engine shattered a window in the cabin, and a woman was partially sucked out of the hole. Other passengers scrambled to assist and pulled her back in. Oxygen masks were released in the cabin, and the plane dropped from 32,500 feet at a rate of more than 3,000 feet per minute before levelling out at about 10,000 feet, according to NBC, a broadcaster. The pilots were able to make a safe landing at Philadelphia International Airport.

There were reports that the woman was rushed to hospital after the landing. There were also reports that a passenger suffered a heart attack during the chaos. It is not clear if the reports referred to the same person. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a regulator, says one person from the flight has died. It is the first passenger fatality on an American airline since 2009, says an agency spokesman, and the first ever on a Southwest flight since the pioneering low-cost carrier was founded in 1967. The spokesman said the incident was caused by “apparent in-flight engine failure of the left engine” and that the agency would have the engine inspected to determine why it malfunctioned.

It is not clear whether the woman was in danger of being pulled from the plane completely. Photos taken by passengers suggest that the hole was the size of the window, which would probably be too small for a person to fit through. Nonetheless, it is the type of incident that could prevent people with a fear of flying from buying a plane ticket for some time. There have been other reports of passengers being sucked from planes in recent years, including from a corporate jet flying over California, an airliner over Somalia that disgorged a suicide bomber, and a Russian cargo plane over Congo. But they have not been on scheduled flights in rich countries.

What happens now? Authorities will probably follow the same path as they did in 1989, when a United Airlines flight experienced rapid decompression after a cargo door failed, causing nine passengers to be sucked out to their deaths. The NTSB opened an investigation and concluded that a flawed design in the cargo door was responsible for the incident. It recommended that airlines replace their door-latching mechanisms and that they use inward-opening doors that cannot be blown out. The agency will no doubt investigate the Southwest incident too. If it finds any flaws in the airliner’s engine, it could issue recommendations or directives that may save lives in the future.

To this story must be added the usual point that flying remains extraordinarily safe. Engine-makers test their jets to destruction to ensure that even in the case of a catastrophic explosion the passengers and crew onboard remain unharmed. Few people come to harm these days due to engine problems, unlike in the early days of aviation. The death of the passenger is a tragedy that should be investigated thoroughly. But the fact that only one passenger has ever died on Southwest flights, when the airline carries over 120m passengers a year, shows that it is the exception which proves an old rule. The most dangerous part of flying is driving to the airport in a car.