Missing part could be key to Southwest flight’s catastrophe
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is focusing on a missing fan blade in its investigation of a Southwest Airlines plane that made an emergency landing Tuesday after its left engine failed. One passenger on the plane was killed in the dramatic incident, which occurred on Southwest Flight 1380 as the plane was flying from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Love Field in Dallas.
News sources say the terrifying experience began when a piece of the engine shattered a window and depressurized the plane, causing oxygen masks to drop. A woman was partly sucked out of the broken window, but other passengers pulled her back in and administered CPR. There is no word on whether the fatality, identified as Jennifer Riordan of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was the woman involved in that incident. In total there were eight injuries among the 144 passengers and five crew members aboard the aircraft.