@SouthwestAir #WN957 diverts and makes emergency landing in CLE due to busted window
Southwest Flight 957 was bound for Newark from Chicago, but was diverted for an emergency landing due to a busted window.
Photos and video footage posted to Twitter reveal a gaping hole in one of the airplane’s windows.
Southwest Flight 957 from Chicago/MDW to Newark just diverted to CLE according to DansDeals reader on the flight. The emergency exit window shattered in-air. The Crew stayed calm and cool while passengers ran away from the window #WN957
76 passengers were aboard the Boeing 737-700 when a crew member could be heard asking them to collect their belongings to switch planes. It is not known if there were any injuries at this time, and the cause is being investigated.
The incident eerily happened only weeks following another Southwest flight that also had a window issue, which tragically resulted in death.
“Breaking News: @mickychinn just sent me this picture of (another!)blown out outer-window on his @SouthwestAir Flight 957 from Midway to Newark,” @ewolbrom tweeted. “Plane just emergency-landed into Cleveland. #Southwest, what is going on? Everyone seems safe and unhurt. Kudos to the pilots and staff!”
Jennifer Riordan, a 43-year-old married mother of two, was killed April 17 after being seated next to a blown-out window on Southwest flight 1380. Autopsy results showed the woman died of blunt force impact trauma to the head, neck and torso, NBC 10 reported. The death was ruled as accidental.
A preliminary investigation into an engine that exploded on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 as it soared 32,000 feet in the air showed evidence of “metal fatigue,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported.
Flight 1380 was bound to Dallas from New York’s LaGuardia airport on a twin-engine Boeing 737 April 17, when a woman was killed after nearly being sucked out of a window that crashed open due to debris from the failed engine.
Lead NTSB investigator Bill English receives Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder from Southwest Airlines flight prior to being sent to NTSB headquarters in Washington, DC for download.
NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt held a media briefing, which you can watch above, regarding the incident the evening of the tragedy. He stated, in part:
NTSB investigators arrived in Philadelphia at about 4:30 this afternoon to begin our investigation of the engine failure and fatality of an onboard passenger on Southwest Flight 1380. We deal with a lot of things like this and it’s never easy, and we want to offer our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of the woman whose life was lost today, and also we recognize the passengers and crew onboard that airplane have gone through a lot as well, and we’d like to offer our thoughts and prayers to all of those.
We’ve brought a team of specialists with specialty in power plants, airworthiness to look at the airworthiness of the aircraft itself, power plants will of course be looking at the engine. We have specialists in survival factors operations, and in Washington we have our recorders experts as well as folks that will be looking at the maintenance records of this particular airplane.
Here’s the factual information that we have at this time:
Southwest Flight 1380, a Boeing 737-700 departed LuGuardia at 10:43 a.m. destined for Dallas Love Field. The flight up to the point of the engine failure was routine. Approximately 20 minutes after takeoff as the aircraft was passing through approximately 32,500 feet, multiple aural alerts and warnings sounded in the cockpit. The crew donned their oxygen masks and they reported to air traffic control they had a number one engine fire and they were operating single engine and they were initiating an emergency decent. They requested vectors to the nearest suitable airport and were promptly vectored, cleared directly to the Philadelphia National Airport…now at about the same location as the event unfolded, later someone found a Southwest Airlines engine cowling at Burnville, Pennsylvania.
Our specialists immediately focused on a missing fan blade. So of course as you look in the engine from the front of the airplane there are 24 fan blades that of course normally rotate, and they help bring air into the engine. One of the fan blades, the number 13 fan blade was separated and missing. And it was separated at the point where it would come into the hub. So there’s a hub and then the fan blades attach to the hub. So this fan blade was broken right at the hub, and our preliminary examination of this was that there’s evidence of metal fatigue where the fan separated.
NTSB media briefing Wednesday on investigation of Southwest Airlines flight 1380 engine failure set for 4:30 p.m. at Philadelphia International Airport, Terminal E at the ticket counters on the Departure Road. NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt to speak.