Southwest 737 -700 Uncontained Engine Failure

[Graham2001]

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700, registration N766SW performing flight WN-3472 from New Orleans,LA to Orlando,FL (USA) with 99 passengers and 5 crew, was climbing through FL310 out of New Orleans, about 80nm west of Pensacola,FL (USA) when the front section of the left hand engine (CFM56) separated, debris impacted and punctured the left side of the fuselage causing a loss of cabin pressure. The crew diverted the aircraft to Pensacola for a safe landing on runway 17, the aircraft vacated the runway and taxied to the apron with emergency services following the aircraft. There were no injuries, the aircraft sustained substantial damage.

http://avherald.com/h?article=49d2d7e3&opt=0


See also:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-f...ry?id=41693085

I wonder if someone left the cowling unlatched...

[Evan]

Something, most likely a fan blade, departed, but most of the visible damage is forward of any moving parts. I'm assuming most of that inlet section damage is from aerodynamic forces. But what could have caused it to fail like that in the first place?

Somewhere there was a lot of metal falling from the sky...

[Evan]

I will hazard a guess that this began as a structural failure in the inlet section, causing something to be ingested into the engine and resulting in a fan or compressor blade departing through the engine casing and striking the fuselage. Meanwhile the structural failure that began the sequence propogated due to aerodynamic forces encountered during an emergency descent to cause the entire inlet section to rip apart. I don't see how an internal engine failure can lead to the structural damage we see here. I think it is the other way around.

Might have its roots in some incident on the ground or perhaps a bird strike causing damage to the inlet section. I've seen a few significantly dented inlet lips on operational 737's.

[EconomyClass]

Do they have maintenance issues? This incident had some kind of deju effect. So I looked back. There were incidents in 2009 and 2011 when holes appeared in the fuselage of their planes. With depressurization. I vaguely remember something about rivets weakening. I never heard what procedures got changed as a result. My impression is their incidents don't tend to kill passengers, but maybe scare a few.

[Highkeas]

Do they have maintenance issues? This incident had some kind of deju effect. So I looked back. There were incidents in 2009 and 2011 when holes appeared in the fuselage of their planes. With depressurization. I vaguely remember something about rivets weakening. I never heard what procedures got changed as a result. My impression is their incidents don't tend to kill passengers, but maybe scare a few.

The detached overhead panel was a Boeing manufacturing error.

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAB1302.pdf

[ATLcrew]

If only there were regulations against this sort of thing...

[EconomyClass]

The detached overhead panel was a Boeing manufacturing error.
http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/A...ts/AAB1302.pdf

Quite possibly. On two different planes. And only at Southwest? Which other airlines lost part of their fuselage? Did Boeing get sued?

Adding to the company’s woes, the New York Times reported that after a process of inspecting some of the fleet’s 737 aircraft, a third plane was found to have the same type of stress fractures. This follows a 2008 FAA fine of $10.2 million for Southwest’s failure to follow inspection guidelines, even allowing six planes to fly that the company knew had stress cracks.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuf.../#127f1c9738a6