1 dead in Southwest Airlines flight has uncontained engine failure

Interesting trivia,I went to see Captain Sullenberger speak at Seattle’s Museum of Flight several years ago. There were maybe 100 people in the audience and when he was done Sully took questions from the audiance. I was more than surprised when one of the questioners introduced himself as Al Haynes! It was interesting seeing two so experienced old hands discussing how to handle an emergency...

As an aside my father was a senior UAL pilot when Haynes was just starting and while Mr Haynes said they never flew together he admitted knowing who my dad was and described him as “one of those hot shot pilots” he looked up to back then. Made me feel proud of my dad...

Only by the average walk-on-gargo. Cpt Sullenberger's Cactus 1549 'unable' and "We can't do it ... We're gonna be in the Hudson" will be remembered. His comments on the SWA pilot carries the weight of one who has 'been there, done that, got the T-shirt'

I do not think he is forgotten... I have met him and he is a very nice person. He was the right person at the right time in the right position!

Oh the esquire. I miss the entertainment he'd occasionally provide, but certainly don't miss his nonsensical rants about "flyers" needing to get off his lawn and the inevitable "esquire spiral" that would ensue.

LOL.. I had forgotten that name.... LOL, wish you had as well.

I have to disagree (respectfully). I don't miss him at all. It maybe boring, but it's a lot more pleasant.

That would depend on the inspections. they receive a good walk around visual at least once every 3 days. At least once a year they go through a hangar for NDT where they crawl all over the fuselage with electronics looking for cracks, but more so looking for corrosion. Every few years and this is going to be different with every carrier the a/c go into heavy maintenance where the plane is torn apart. The interior and every thing is tore down to the structure, inspected from both sides and any discrepancies repaired at that time.

I hope this answers your question!

Yes, confirmed N772SW.

Agreed, sparkie. Autopilot was probably on and then kicked off. Tammie Jo probably took control and righted the steep bank. Many warning lights flashing and engine indications going to zero, cabin pressure warning, donning O2 masks. WOW, things were happening fast. All within about 60 seconds. She did the correct thing-----she flew the aircraft first. I'm a former USAF fighter pilot and we trained to try and save the aircraft but if that was impossible-----eject. You can't eject from a 737.

That was my take on the audio.

Crew did a great job, probably a good thing the captain had fighter experience to know how to breathe during the explosive decompression event. Very sad a passenger lost her life--prayers for her and her family.

Pretty early to blame "missed or improper inspection".

We blamed UA 232 on improper inspection based on finding residue of fluorescent penetrant vaporized from the crack surface of the disc remnant. This became the foundation of "human factors" in nondestructive examination (NDE), i.e., although we have vast amounts of technical data instructing the human to carefully inspect the center bore area of the disc, we still missed the crack 800 hours earlier during maintenance--which to this day I believe is BS but full disclosure--my father worked for UAL for about 43 years. Later we learned the same chemical is also found in turbine engine oil--wow, that's really strange that turbine engine oil might be found on a turbine engine part in an area near a rotating air/oil seal. GE probably appreciated this finding though as it suggests negligence on the part of United maintenance. Now we use triple-melted titanium to make fan rotors.

If it's the cowl/inlet coming off first and causing fan blade damage due to some latent structural defect or maintenance practice, you probably wouldn't see evidence of fatigue and there likely would be more blade damage. Fatigue leaves striations on the crack surface called "beach marks" which are incremental propagations of the crack per cycle--eventually the crack grows to a size where the non-cracked area can't support the load and the part fails. A large number of cycles can be amassed in relatively short order in turbine engines due to the high rotational speeds. Also we should have seen more of these events given the high number of operating aircraft (opportunities). One area that does need examination is the kevlar ring behind the inlet cowl that is supposed to contain fan blade failures--this containment has to be demonstrated during engine certification meaning an intentionally-flawed fan blade is tested to failure during actual engine operation.

The fact it's confined to SWA and that two almost-identical blade failures have occurred in relatively close proximity points to fracture toughness of the titanium blade or possibly in-service damage--rest assured all will be looked at in due course. The NTSB does a good job but they do not have impartial technical experts so they have to rely on folks who may not be impartial.

I wonder 1) who does SWA engine maintenance, 2) how close were the blades in each failure to their life limit, and 3) were there any repairs done to the failed blades?

Also, what is the on-wing inspection requirement for these blades--is any eddy current testing used?

You say "If the fan blade had failed on its own, it would have ripped the guts out of the engine."

It was most likely a single blade failure.

When a blade fails, sometimes the thrust produced by the blade itself will propel it forward and it will bounce around the front of the fan causing a lot of damage to other blades. That does not seem to be the case from looking at the pictures, so it's probably safe to assume it simply went thru the fan duct and out the back. It would not have gone through the engine core.

Once the blade was gone the fan imbalance probably resulted in the forward cowl being shaken apart.

If the cowl had failed first there would have been damage to more than one single fan blade.

But that's just my theory. It's awfully early to be drawing conclusions.

Great job by the crew!

I had not seen any examples of his technical knowledge until recently. Before this, I had only seen rude remarks and incorrect information.

The one I really disliked was "could not duplicate". - LOL... that is one we have to use some times... And to be honest with you, some crews write up the craziest stuff... The best one that I ever had and made the top 10 funnies list for write ups that year... Discrepancy: "A/C Autoland Very Rough" - My signoff: "This A/c is not Auto Land Capable" (Nope this is not a joke... It really happened on a 737! We had 2 different 737-200 fleets. One had autoland and the other did not, but the A/P Flight Control Panels were totally 100% different.

Yes, I am really sure...

Several.... I think that is the under estimation of the year... I would start with a small list!

Engine Vibe, EPR, Engine Temp, Eng HYD 1, GEN 1 OFF, Bleed 1 Low Pressure.... I am sure there would be a lot more.