NTSB Reveals Cause Of Deadly Engine Failure Aboard Dallas-Bound Southwest Flight 1380
NTSB Recommends Changes To Boeing 737 After Deadly Southwest Airlines Incident
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - An engine on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 exploded over Pennsylvania in 2018, killing a wife and mother from New Mexico. Today the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will present their findings as to what caused the engine failure.
The plane was flying from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Dallas Love Field Airport when, 20 minutes into the flight, one of the Boeing 737's engines exploded. When the engine blew apart, at 30,000 feet, pieces of metal hit the plane, shattered a window, and caused part of the cabin to lose pressure.
"There was such an increasing shudder to the aircraft," pilot Tammie Jo Shults told CBS 11 News. "We couldn't communicate, because a window had been blown out and 500 mph wind makes a roar. You know I thought this, this may be the day that I meet my maker."
Jennifer Riordan, a businesswoman from Albuquerque, was partially sucked out of the broken window. Despite passengers grabbing on and eventually pulling Riordan back into the plane and administering first aid, the 43-year-old woman died from her injuries.
With a hole in the side of the plane Shults, one of the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, safely made an emergency landing in Philadelphia.
Before the hearing a Southwest spokesperson issued a statement saying -
"We appreciate the work of the National Transportation Safety Board and each of the parties working to determine the probable cause of the accident. We all have the same goals: to share facts, learn what happened, and prevent this type of event from ever happening again."
It was this time last year when the NTSB, the governing body that investigates transportation accidents, held an investigative hearing to gather more facts about the incident on Flight 1380.