Boeing should re-design all 737NG aircraft after passenger sucked from plane in US

Jennifer Riordan pictured with her husband. Pic: Facebook

BOEING should re-design the protecting covering of engines on its older 737 aircraft to prevent a repetition of an accident in which a woman was sucked from a plane last year, US safety regulators have said.
 

Jennifer Riordan, a 43-year-old banker and mother of two from New Mexico in the US was sucked out after a window shattered, leading to rapid de-pressurisation. Fellow passengers managed to pull her back inside but she died of her injuries in the incident on April 18 2018.

Southwest Airlines flight 1380 from New York City’s LaGuardia to Dallas suffered an engine failure roughly 30 minutes after take-off from LaGuardia airport in New York. A defective fan blade broke off and shattered the protective covering of its CFM56-7B engine. Fragments of the covering hit the window.

Southwest flight 1380 made an emergency landing in Philadelphia in April 2018
Southwest flight 1380 made an emergency landing in Philadelphia in April 2018

The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the US Federal Aviation Administration ask Boeing to replace the fan cowling on all existing and future 737 Next Generation aircraft. Presently there are more than 7,000 737NGs flying.

The NTSB said the 24 blades in the Southwest plane’s engine were 18 years old and had been used on more than 32,000 flights before that day.

 
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Written by

Shirin Aguiar

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