Women dies from Southwest Airlines engine explosion

bingham67 said:
Such a tragic incident and also very scary, obviously dont know all the details but she was partially sucked out of plane and had to be pulled back from passengers inside.

Is this just a freak accident or some long term issue with these engines no doubt a lot of other planes with these engines?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43803340
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Boeing 737-700 gets used massively with pretty low incident rates and the engine is pretty tried and tested.

EDIT: Looks like the same old story with complacency as to signs of metal fatigue though :(
 
Rroff said:
EDIT: Looks like the same old story with complacency as to signs of metal fatigue though :(
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I don't think that's the main problem here. Obviously, the root cause of this is because the fan blade broke off - possibly due to metal fatigue, but I think the main concern is that bits of debris hit the side of the plane?
The engines are supposed to contain any failures like that.
 
This engine is used on the 737-300/-400/-500/-600/-700/-800/-900 and probably around half of the A320 family (A319/320/321) up in the air at the moment. It's a tried and tested, and reliable engine.

I watched a video from in the cabin after the window blew and it seem so loud! :eek: But then it would when you're travelling at 850km/h with the window open.

touch said:
I don't think that's the main problem here. Obviously, the root cause of this is because the fan blade broke off - possibly due to metal fatigue, but I think the main concern is that bits of debris hit the side of the plane?
The engines are supposed to contain any failures like that.
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The engine case is designed to contain it if the fan blade is ingested. If the blade flies forward then the cowling (which is missing) isn't a containment device.
 
squerble said:
The engine case is designed to contain it if the fan blade is ingested. If the blade flies forward then the cowling (which is missing) isn't a containment device.
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Yes, but my point was that the fan blade breaking off is not really the issue here (it's not a massively rare thing to happen), the problem is that the blade itself hit the plane, or some knock-on effect caused something else to hit the plane.

So the questions should be about how/why the blade wasn't contained rather than why it came off in the first place.
 
I have a few titanium blades from the CFM56 engines I use to make carbon race car tub skid blocks (the things that make the sparks when F1 ran the ground effect cars), and other bits milled from Ti. They're a big lump of metal and I can imagine one or more coming off doing a lot of damage at the sort of RPM they turn. Plus normal centrifugal stresses must be immense. There is / was an engine test place near Poynton or Bramhall in Cheshire where they had a device that lobbed full turkey carcasses into running engines, apparently they ate `em up and spat `em out. I imagine there were some serious stresses involved mashing up a turkey in a turbo fan engine! I guess window seats will lose popularity for a while now....
 
Most people don't, because it's safer than any other vehicle class that's ever existed (i believe). Keeping a belt on for hours when you have 1 several million chances of potentially dying is like never going outside because lightning may strike you, which has a vastly higher chance of doing so.

It's unfortunate, and it would have saved her I'd imagine.
 
Seems to be a worrying trend for engine containment failures recently. Was unheard of up until a few years ago.

Should be wearing your seatbelt just in case of serious turbulence which seriously injures plenty of people every year.
 
StriderX said:
Keeping a belt on for hours when you have 1 several million chances of potentially dying is like never going outside because lightning may strike you
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No it's not.
Keeping your belt on makes no difference to you. Not going outside because you're afraid of lightning would have a massive impact on your life.
 
I keep my seat belt on most of the time basically, with that said this woman was very unfortunate and is at no fault here.
 
IronWarrior said:
Don't keep a seat belt on while driving, see if that makes any difference to you when you have a crash.
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That's not what I meant.
Maybe it would have been better if I'd said "Keeping your seatbelt on causes no inconvenience, not going outside causes you great inconvenience".

(eg. I would always keep my seatbelt on)
 
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