SW Airlines catastrophic in-flight engine failure

Checkmite said:
Some ATC audio from the incident:



The PIC is Tammie Jo Shults, a former Navy FA-18 pilot.
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Hooray for one more female hero pilot. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

This is from the DailyMail link above:
Tammie Jo Shults (pictured left, and right on the aircraft with the rest of the crew), a former Navy fighter pilot and the first woman to fly an F-18, quickly brought the Dallas-bound Southwest Flight 1380 to land at Philadelphia International at 11.30am after the explosion at 32,000ft.

'Tammie Jo Schults, the pilot came back to speak to each of us personally,' Diana McBride Self wrote. 'This is a true American Hero. A huge thank you for her knowledge, guidance and bravery in a traumatic situation. God bless her and all the crew.'

Schults was one of the first female fighter pilots in the US Navy and first to fly an F-18. She later became an instructor, as the Navy did not allow women to fly in combat, and she finally resigned in 1993 when she joined Southwest Airlines. A mother-of-two, originally from New Mexico, Schults now lives with her husband Dean, a fellow pilot, in Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas.

'She has nerves of steel. That lady, I applaud her,' said Alfred Tumlinson, of Corpus Christi, Texas. 'I'm going to send her a Christmas card, I'm going to tell you that, with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome.'
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Wow!
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
That depends. The pilot descended rapidly so the masks may not have been needed by the time the video started.
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They play the video before takeoff. Nobody watches. It was better when the FA's did it live, but not much.

The failure seems weird. Even though the pressure behind the fan is greater than ahead of it, it still seems odd doing damage forward like that. It'll probably be a year or two before it's all understood.
 
Essentially the same single fan blade failure on the same model of engine happened in 2016 with Southwest. The fuselage damage from that one was shown in a photo upthread.

CNBC said:
On Aug. 27, 2016, a Southwest flight made an emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, after a fan blade separated from the disc, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Debris punched a 16-inch by 5-inch hole in the left fuselage, above the wing, the NTSB had said.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/reg...of-engine-involved-in-southwest-incident.html
 
Trebuchet said:
Skeptic Ginger said:
That depends. The pilot descended rapidly so the masks may not have been needed by the time the video started.
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They play the video before takeoff. Nobody watches.
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I think "the video" in the quote is referring to the released mobile-phone video of the passengers in the cabin. Not the pre-flight safety briefing.

It was better when the FA's did it live, but not much.
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I don't remember Southwest flights having video screens. I assume they still do them live.
 
Some passengers said that the broken window caused the cabin to become so loud that any intercom messages from the pilot or crew could not be heard.
 
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Checkmite said:
Although the remaining engine was capable of powering the system, passengers reported a smell of smoke and "ash coming from the vents", so the ventilation system was at least compromised and contaminated if not disabled completely. Maybe safety system was able to detect that condition and deploy the masks.

I'm actually not sure if the pilot is able to deploy the masks manually, or why the automated system would not have deployed them once it detected the same readings that would have prompted the pilot to do so in this case.

Passengers have said that the window "blew out" around ten seconds after the engine "exploded". Possible scenario: the debris broke the window immediately after the engine failed, but the window didn't blow out completely right away. It only cracked enough to allow a small cabin pressure leak, which was detected by the safety system (which deployed the oxygen masks). A few seconds later, building wind and pressure stress finally pulled the broken window apart.
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Yes, the masks can be deployed manually. The control is on the aft overhead panel.
 
Checkmite said:
Although the remaining engine was capable of powering the system, passengers reported a smell of smoke and "ash coming from the vents", so the ventilation system was at least compromised and contaminated if not disabled completely. Maybe safety system was able to detect that condition and deploy the masks...
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The fresh air supply is fed from both* engines so some smoke or fumes from the damaged side would be likely.

* I only know that from reading about the Kegworth crash where the port engine failed but the pilots shut down their good starboard engine in error, at least partly because they got smoke in the cockpit and knew that 737s were only fed fresh air from the starboard side (true of older ones but not the newer model they were flying).
 
No article is specifically saying how the blunt trauma occurred. But after reading various accounts including one of the guys who pulled her back inside - I believe that she was not hit by shrapnel and instead was killed because she was sucked with great force "through the eye of a needle" and then dangled outside a jet moving at around 600mph. Witnesses said she was hanging halfway out of the window and could not be pulled back in using the strength of a single person. I speculate that it may have only been the thickness of her pelvis which kept her from going completely out.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Would someone care to comment on whether the flying skills needed were routine or exceptional?
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Well, we have a depressurization, a badly damaged engine, damaged leading edge wing surfaces, and injured passengers, all at once.

From the ATC audio, it seems as if the pilot is unaware of all that has happened and is initially just reacting to having lost power one engine.

For much of the ATC recording, the pilot seems to only be aware that one engine isn't working, which is not a big deal these days.

I would guess that much of her calmness, at least in the recordings I have heard, is related to believing that she just has an engine out.
 
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William Parcher said:
No article is specifically saying how the blunt trauma occurred. But after reading various accounts including one of the guys who pulled her back inside - I believe that she was not hit by shrapnel and instead was killed because she was sucked with great force "through the eye of a needle" and then dangled outside a jet moving at around 600mph. Witnesses said she was hanging halfway out of the window and could not be pulled back in using the strength of a single person. I speculate that it may have only been the thickness of her pelvis which kept her from going completely out.
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Do you think the victim acted as a plug, keeping the cabin pressure up for a time?

Was there an initial drop of cabin pressure when the window failed, followed by a recovery of pressure as the victim "plugged" the hole, followed by another drop as the victim was removed?

I wonder if the pilot opened the cabin pressure dump valve to equalize the pressure so the victim could be pulled in?

It could be very difficult to pull the victim back in as long as there is a pressure difference.

I am wondering what the pilots saw on their instruments as far as cabin pressure. They could have been fooled if the pressure recovered, for example.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Well, we have a depressurization, a badly damaged engine, damaged leading edge wing surfaces, and injured passengers, all at once.

From the ATC audio, it seems as if the pilot is unaware of all that has happened and is initially just reacting to having lost power one engine.

For much of the ATC recording, the pilot seems to only be aware that one engine isn't working, which is not a big deal these days.

I would guess that much of her calmness, at least in the recordings I have heard, is related to believing that she just has an engine out.
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A very sudden loss of thrust IS a pretty big deal. The airplane immediately yaws toward the affected engine, causing increased lift on the other side and a large roll -- the news this morning said this airplane reached 40 degrees. The pilot needs to immediately react in all three axes. Then, having regained control, they need to work pretty hard to get things back in trim.

Most loss of thrust problems are going to be more gradual, engine spooling down or developing a vibration causing them to shut it off. Also note that rudder pedals are not used a whole lot in normal flying but are essential in this case.

Here's a video by a 737 pilot discussing the incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzkfYj6SBxo
 
LTC8K6 said:
Well, we have a depressurization, a badly damaged engine, damaged leading edge wing surfaces, and injured passengers, all at once.

From the ATC audio, it seems as if the pilot is unaware of all that has happened and is initially just reacting to having lost power one engine.

For much of the ATC recording, the pilot seems to only be aware that one engine isn't working, which is not a big deal these days.

I would guess that much of her calmness, at least in the recordings I have heard, is related to believing that she just has an engine out.
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:rolleyes:
And maybe her years as a fighter pilot?

Have you looked at that pilot's resume? Not to mention she would have been aware of the decompression fairly soon as she took action for that.


Look, professionals like pilots and the team in the ICU or ED are trained to stay calm, you practice, you make yourself not get excited. That's what you do.
 
As for the woman's injuries, there was the initial injury of being squeezed through the opening, the wind and I agree, she'd have been knocking against the plane, and the depressurization, not just lack of oxygen but the air in her lungs could have expanded rapidly causing a lot of lung trauma. She didn't need to be hit by shrapnel. I imagine she died fairly quickly with too much trauma to recover from.
 
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