Behind the scenes at an NTSB accident investigation
A panel on fan blades. Witnesses who’ll describe a “failure sequence.” Those are just two of the elements that will be featured in the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigative hearing today into an engine failure on a Southwest Airlines plane that killed a passenger.
On a flight from New York to Dallas, a fan blade broke, causing a catastrophic engine failure and causing shrapnel to strike the plane, breaking a window. Despite the efforts of her fellow passengers, Jennifer Riordan died after being partially ejected from the plane through the broken window.