Directive requires ultrasonic inspection of fan blades on CFM56-7B engines that accrued certain number of flights

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The US Federal Aviation Administration has ordered the inspection of 220 jet engines after investigators said a broken fan blade touched off an engine explosion on a Southwest Airlines flight, shattering a window and killing a passenger.

The order, called an air-worthiness directive, would require an ultrasonic inspection within the next six months of the fan blades on all CFM56-7B engines that have accrued a certain number of flights.



The CFM56 engine on Southwest flight 1380 blew apart over Pennsylvania on Tuesday, about 20 minutes after the Dallas-bound flight left New York’s LaGuardia Airport with 149 people on board.

The explosion sent shrapnel ripping into the fuselage of the Boeing 737-700 plane and shattered a window.

Southwest passengers tried to save woman as pilot showed 'nerves of steel' Read more

Jennifer Riordan, 43, a bank executive, was killed when she was partially pulled through a gaping hole next to her seat in row 14 as the cabin suffered rapid decompression. Fellow passengers were able to pull her back inside but she died of her injuries later on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt told a news conference the incident began when one of the engine’s 24 fan blades snapped off from its hub. Sumwalt said investigators found the blade had suffered metal fatigue at the site of the break.

Sumwalt said he could not yet say if the incident, the first deadly airline accident in the US since 2009, pointed to a fleet-wide issue in the Boeing 737-700.

“We want to very carefully understand what was the result of this problem, and as I mentioned a few minutes ago, I’m very concerned about this particular event,” he said. “To be able to extrapolate that to the entire fleet, I’m not willing to do that right now.”

Southwest crews were inspecting similar engines – made by a partnership of France’s Safran and General Electric – the airline had in service, focusing on the 400 to 600 oldest, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. It was the second time that style of engine had failed on a Southwest jet in the past two years, prompting airlines around the world to step up inspections.

Play Video 0:35 Southwest Airlines jet to air traffic control: 'There's a hole and someone went out' – audio

An NTSB inspection crew was also combing over the Boeing 737-700 for signs of what caused the engine to explode.

Sumwalt said the fan blade, after suffering metal fatigue where it attached to the engine hub, suffered a second fracture about halfway along its length. Pieces of the plane were found in rural Pennsylvania by investigators who tracked them on radar. The metal fatigue would not have been observable by looking at the engine from the outside, he said.

The jet was traveling at 190 miles per hour when it made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International airport, according to Sumwalt, much faster than the typical 155-mile-per-hour touchdown.

Passengers described scenes of panic as a piece of shrapnel from the engine shattered a plane window, almost sucking Riordan out.

“The window had broken and the negative pressure had pulled her outside the plane partially,” Peggy Phillips, a registered nurse who was on the plane, told WFAA-TV in Dallas. “Two wonderful men ... they managed to get her back inside the plane, and we laid her down and we started CPR.”

Riordan was a Wells Fargo banking executive and well-known community volunteer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the company said.



Videos posted on social media showed passengers grabbing for oxygen masks and screaming as the plane, piloted by 56-year-old Tammie Jo Shults, a former US navy fighter pilot, prepared for the descent.

“All I could think of in that moment was, I need to communicate with my loved ones,” passenger Marty Martinez told ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday. During the incident, he logged on to the in-flight Wi-Fi to send messages to his family.

“I thought, these are my last few moments on Earth and I want people to know what happened,” said Martinez, who live-streamed images of passengers in oxygen masks as the plane made a bumpy descent.

The airline expected to wrap up its inspection of the engines it was targeting in about 30 days. The GE-Safran partnership that built the engine said it was sending about 40 technicians to help with inspections.

The investigation could take 12 to 15 months to complete.

In August 2016, a Southwest flight made a safe emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, after a fan blade separated from the same type of engine and debris ripped a hole above the left wing. That incident prompted the FAA to propose last year that similar fan blades undergo ultrasonic inspections and be replaced if they failed.