SWA1380 - diversion to KPHL after engine event
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Pilot and copilot are going to be on ABCs 20/20 Friday, May 11 at 10 p.m. ET.
Summary of the program with some information on what the pilot vs copilot was doing.
I don't think anyone in this thread mentioned the delay in communicating with flight attendants: "A few minutes before landing, the pilots were finally got in touch with the flight attendants, who informed them that there were injured passengers and that a window had shattered."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/pilots-saf...ry?id=55041588
Summary of the program with some information on what the pilot vs copilot was doing.
I don't think anyone in this thread mentioned the delay in communicating with flight attendants: "A few minutes before landing, the pilots were finally got in touch with the flight attendants, who informed them that there were injured passengers and that a window had shattered."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/pilots-saf...ry?id=55041588
PasstTense
Thanks for the link.
I was surprised about the person tense used in the wording. Most of it seemed to be attribital to the pilots until the section in quotes
"A few minutes before landing, the pilots were finally got in touch with the flight attendants, who informed them that there were injured passengers and that a window had shattered."
In my read this signifies an opinion by the writer that I do not share. Perhaps it would make more sense if the words used were only from the pilots or from the NTSB prelim summary
Thanks for the link.
I was surprised about the person tense used in the wording. Most of it seemed to be attribital to the pilots until the section in quotes
"A few minutes before landing, the pilots were finally got in touch with the flight attendants, who informed them that there were injured passengers and that a window had shattered."
In my read this signifies an opinion by the writer that I do not share. Perhaps it would make more sense if the words used were only from the pilots or from the NTSB prelim summary
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
A good extract from the interview in today's London Times. "So long as you have altitude and ideas you are OK. We had both". Yep.
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Here's a re-creation of the event done by an Embry-Riddle prof in a CRJ sim. She demoes stickshaker, GPWS and other stuff on the single engine descent and approach.
https://news.erau.edu/headlines/erau...-on-abcs-2020/
https://news.erau.edu/headlines/erau...-on-abcs-2020/
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SLF Dumb Question; Why does the stickshaker go off? I thought that was for stall warning. Would an engine out while in the cruise reduce airspeed so quickly as to near stall speed?
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An engine failure at any altitude should not devolve into a stall. That performance would not pass an annual simulator check by a mile. I suspect the producers wanted more of a show. Scary lights, warbler, stick pusher, etc. At least I hope that’s what it was.
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A known event. B737 family. >FL350. Engine failure in crz at night then developed into a stick shaker event very quickly. I suspect the startle factor and lack of experiencing such an event in the sim might have led the crew into focusing on the engine failure rather than ANC.
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Flaws in jet engine fan blades like one that cracked and broke loose in April, killing a Southwest Airlines Co. passenger, have been discovered on planes operated by several carriers, and the manufacturer is moving to further tighten inspections.
General Electric Co., part of a venture that makes the engines, found a cracked blade during post-accident inspections of another Southwest plane, and spotted four or five more in those of other airlines, Southwest Chief Operating Officer Michael Van de Ven said Thursday on a conference call to discuss earnings.
“We expect to formalize the interval in a new service bulletin that will be issued in coming days,” GE spokesman Perry Bradley said in a statement. Service bulletins are non-binding recommendations on maintenance, but are almost always made mandatory by aviation regulators.
Southwest has already cut the inspection interval for older engines almost in half, from 3,000 flights to 1,600, Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said in an interview.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/southwest-boosts-inspections-of-engine-involved-in-fatal-failure?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign=headline &cmpId=yhoo.headline&yptr=yahoo
Why is the point to use a CRJ sim? a similar failure on a CRJ you would be looking at far dearer consequences.
General Electric Co., part of a venture that makes the engines, found a cracked blade during post-accident inspections of another Southwest plane, and spotted four or five more in those of other airlines, Southwest Chief Operating Officer Michael Van de Ven said Thursday on a conference call to discuss earnings.
“We expect to formalize the interval in a new service bulletin that will be issued in coming days,” GE spokesman Perry Bradley said in a statement. Service bulletins are non-binding recommendations on maintenance, but are almost always made mandatory by aviation regulators.
Southwest has already cut the inspection interval for older engines almost in half, from 3,000 flights to 1,600, Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said in an interview.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/southwest-boosts-inspections-of-engine-involved-in-fatal-failure?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign=headline &cmpId=yhoo.headline&yptr=yahoo
Here's a re-creation of the event done by an Embry-Riddle prof in a CRJ sim. She demoes stickshaker, GPWS and other stuff on the single engine descent and approach.
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The NTSB held an investigative hearing last week with witnessess from Southwest, Boeing, CFM and FAA. The public docket was also opened which has inteviews with the flight and cabin crews and passengers, CVR transcript and FDR data. The link to the hearing page, which in turn has a link to the docket, is https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pag...8MA142-IH.aspx
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NTSB Docket
Edit: I looked at the wrong graph. Apparently there is no large difference in magnitude between the engines... rather looks like Eng 1 vibration goes way down before it disintegrates. Very hard to tell with the scaling being that extreme for Eng 1. Looks like either the vibration went down to 0, or the rendering of the graph is not very good.
Can the engines warn themselves about high vibrations or is it up to the crew to look at the gauges? I know the manufacturers have very advanced algorithms to detect wear/maintenance needs and so on, but how clever is the onboard software?
With a few notable exceptions, Boeing doesn't have any recommendations regarding high engine vibrations other than 'crew awareness'. There are other potential causes for engine vibrations other than imminent engine failure - e.g. ice accumulation on the fan/compressor blades (which can usually be addressed by temporarily increasing the engine power setting).
Even when the vibrations are the result of engine damage, you don't want the FADEC unilaterally shutting the engine down - the problem could easily affect multiple engines (e.g. birdstrike) and the last thing you want to do is do an auto-shutdown of all engines.
The one exception for high vibes that I recall was for the RB211-524 engine. After a couple of bearing failure related fan shaft fractures that culminated in uncontained engine failures, if the engine vibes exceeded some threshold the crew was instructed to shut it down.
Even when the vibrations are the result of engine damage, you don't want the FADEC unilaterally shutting the engine down - the problem could easily affect multiple engines (e.g. birdstrike) and the last thing you want to do is do an auto-shutdown of all engines.
The one exception for high vibes that I recall was for the RB211-524 engine. After a couple of bearing failure related fan shaft fractures that culminated in uncontained engine failures, if the engine vibes exceeded some threshold the crew was instructed to shut it down.
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I took a gander at the CVR transcript from the docket, and I think it's a really interesting illustration of professionalism, competence, and humanity. The pilots apparently intended to pull the CVR breaker at some point after landing and either failed or couldn't find it (p.65,p.86). So there is a lot more than we usually get of the aftermath of an incident- including debriefing between the pilots and with with the union and ARFF. The CVR is not fully turned off until after the airplane is towed away.
They did have to skip a few checklist items, but in totality they acted efficiently to perform a safe landing. (Engine Fire and Engine Severe Damage checklists seem to have been completed to the best of their ability.) It seems that there was a lot of mutual understanding or non-verbal communication not captured on the CVR, which is interesting.
Given the situation they faced, which included 1. Uncontained engine failure, 2. Resultant control problems due to airflow changes, 3. Loss of half of their hydraulics, 4. Rapid depressurization, and 5. Severely injured passenger, I'd say they did a solid job.
At the beginning of the incident there's not much intelligible audio, possibly because of the crew masks.
Some things I noted:
They did not make contact with the cabin crew until about 12 minutes into the incident- they were focused on descending.
The captain decided to do flaps 5 landing because of possible control surface damage and controllability issues.
They knew pretty much right away that the passenger had died, and informed the airline within about 7 minutes of landing when they called dispatch.
p.67 - The FO gets annoyed when scheduling calls him and he tries to get them off the phone as soon as possible.
p.70 - The FO summarized the incident thusly to the union rep on the phone:
p.72 - GND wants to know if they suspect terrorism. FO says no, mechanical, 100%.
p.78-81 - The pilots debrief each other and try to get their story straight about skipping checklist items. Nothing nefarious here! The captain takes responsibility and says they FO shouldn't try to cover for her.
Captain:
They did have to skip a few checklist items, but in totality they acted efficiently to perform a safe landing. (Engine Fire and Engine Severe Damage checklists seem to have been completed to the best of their ability.) It seems that there was a lot of mutual understanding or non-verbal communication not captured on the CVR, which is interesting.
Given the situation they faced, which included 1. Uncontained engine failure, 2. Resultant control problems due to airflow changes, 3. Loss of half of their hydraulics, 4. Rapid depressurization, and 5. Severely injured passenger, I'd say they did a solid job.
At the beginning of the incident there's not much intelligible audio, possibly because of the crew masks.
Some things I noted:
They did not make contact with the cabin crew until about 12 minutes into the incident- they were focused on descending.
The captain decided to do flaps 5 landing because of possible control surface damage and controllability issues.
They knew pretty much right away that the passenger had died, and informed the airline within about 7 minutes of landing when they called dispatch.
p.67 - The FO gets annoyed when scheduling calls him and he tries to get them off the phone as soon as possible.
p.70 - The FO summarized the incident thusly to the union rep on the phone:
I think the engine blew up I think a fan blade pierced our window I think we had a rapid decompression because of that. that's what I think happened.
p.78-81 - The pilots debrief each other and try to get their story straight about skipping checklist items. Nothing nefarious here! The captain takes responsibility and says they FO shouldn't try to cover for her.
Captain:
I just wanted to know you don't have to defend my skipping of some of the checklists to get on the ground.
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Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKBN1XT1EK
U.S. safety board wants Boeing to redesign 737 NG part after fatal Southwest accident
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday called on Boeing Co (BA.N) to redesign the fan cowl structure on all 737 NG planes and retrofit existing planes after an April 2019 incident in which a woman was killed on a Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) plane after an engine failure caused by a fan blade.
The board said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration should require Boeing to determine the fan blade impact location or locations on the engine fan case and redesign the structure to minimize the potential of a catastrophic failure. The board did not fault Boeing’s analysis in the mid-1990s when it developed the case.
Boeing and the FAA did not immediately comment.
NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt acknowledged the retrofit could be expensive.
“This accident underlines the vulnerability of the fan case to become separated when the fan blade detaches at a location that was not anticipated,” Sumwalt said after the hearing.
The NTSB did not call for the planes to be grounded and noted that airlines are now inspecting the fan blades on a more regular basis.
Jennifer Riordan of New Mexico, a 43-year-old Wells Fargo vice president and mother of two, was killed after the engine exploded and shattered a plane window on Flight 1380. She was the first person killed in a U.S. passenger airline accident since 2009.
The accident occurred 20 minutes into the flight when a fan blade fractured as a result of a fatigue crack on a Boeing 737-700 jet powered by two CFM International CFM56-7B engines after taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The plane, bound for Dallas, diverted to Philadelphia International Airport. Eight of the 144 passengers suffered minor injuries.
The NTSB had been investigating a 2016 engine failure on another Southwest 737-700 at the time of the fatal incident. The incidents in both flights were what is known as a “fan blade out” (FBO) event.
The board noted that there are 14,600 CFM56-7B engines in service with 356,000 fan blades on the Boeing planes, with 400 million flights over more than two decades and two reported engine failures.
Tammie Jo Shults, the flight’s captain, recounted in her book “Nerves of Steel” published last month, that the engine explosion felt “like we’ve been T-boned by a Mack truck.” She said that the 737-700 rolled to the left and pulled into a dive, but that she and the co-pilot were able to level off the plane.
The engine on the plane’s left side spewed bits of metal when it blew apart, shattering a window and causing rapid cabin depressurization, the NTSB said. In 2018, the NTSB said two passengers eventually pulled Riordan, who was buckled into her seat, back inside the plane.
CFM International, the engine manufacturer, is a transatlantic joint venture between General Electric Co (GE.N) and France’s Safran SA (SAF.PA).
Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Alex Richardson and Dan Grebler
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday called on Boeing Co (BA.N) to redesign the fan cowl structure on all 737 NG planes and retrofit existing planes after an April 2019 incident in which a woman was killed on a Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) plane after an engine failure caused by a fan blade.
The board said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration should require Boeing to determine the fan blade impact location or locations on the engine fan case and redesign the structure to minimize the potential of a catastrophic failure. The board did not fault Boeing’s analysis in the mid-1990s when it developed the case.
Boeing and the FAA did not immediately comment.
NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt acknowledged the retrofit could be expensive.
“This accident underlines the vulnerability of the fan case to become separated when the fan blade detaches at a location that was not anticipated,” Sumwalt said after the hearing.
The NTSB did not call for the planes to be grounded and noted that airlines are now inspecting the fan blades on a more regular basis.
Jennifer Riordan of New Mexico, a 43-year-old Wells Fargo vice president and mother of two, was killed after the engine exploded and shattered a plane window on Flight 1380. She was the first person killed in a U.S. passenger airline accident since 2009.
The accident occurred 20 minutes into the flight when a fan blade fractured as a result of a fatigue crack on a Boeing 737-700 jet powered by two CFM International CFM56-7B engines after taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The plane, bound for Dallas, diverted to Philadelphia International Airport. Eight of the 144 passengers suffered minor injuries.
The NTSB had been investigating a 2016 engine failure on another Southwest 737-700 at the time of the fatal incident. The incidents in both flights were what is known as a “fan blade out” (FBO) event.
The board noted that there are 14,600 CFM56-7B engines in service with 356,000 fan blades on the Boeing planes, with 400 million flights over more than two decades and two reported engine failures.
Tammie Jo Shults, the flight’s captain, recounted in her book “Nerves of Steel” published last month, that the engine explosion felt “like we’ve been T-boned by a Mack truck.” She said that the 737-700 rolled to the left and pulled into a dive, but that she and the co-pilot were able to level off the plane.
The engine on the plane’s left side spewed bits of metal when it blew apart, shattering a window and causing rapid cabin depressurization, the NTSB said. In 2018, the NTSB said two passengers eventually pulled Riordan, who was buckled into her seat, back inside the plane.
CFM International, the engine manufacturer, is a transatlantic joint venture between General Electric Co (GE.N) and France’s Safran SA (SAF.PA).
Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Alex Richardson and Dan Grebler
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