Welcome
COVER PHOTO: Southwest Airlines Boeing 737.
ANGELO BUFALINOResponding to a disaster is something for which almost
every carrier prepares, and while many have avoided major
crises, others aren’t so lucky. For Southwest Airlines, this
carefully crafted plan was put into action on April 17 when
an apparent engine explosion sprayed shrapnel into the
cabin of a Boeing 737-700 while at cruising altitude,
blowing out a window and fatally injuring a female
passenger (see Air Safety).
While it’s not something any carrier wants to be in a
position to ‘get right’, few can fault the response of the
airline and its CEO Gary Kelly. The condolences were
sincere and heartfelt, with an immediate pledge to help
those affected by the accident and a commitment to
establish the cause swiftly. The airline and its staff
should be commended for their professionalism in a crisis.
The accident remains under investigation, but the NTSB
has already traced the problem to metal fatigue in the port
engine, and specifically an interior crack on a fan blade.
NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said such damage,
which led to the separation of fan blade number 13 (of 24
in total), was “certainly not detectable from looking at
it from the outside.”
In response, the FAA has issued an
emergency airworthiness directive (AD)
calling on operators of the CFM56-7B engine
to “perform a one-time ultrasonic inspection
of all 24-fan blades...” within 20 days.
CFM International has cited the engine’s
enviable record – it currently powers more
than 6,700 aircraft worldwide and, since its
entry into service in 1997, has accumulated
more than 350 million flight hours “as one of
the most reliable and popular jet engines in
airline history,” the firm said.
But while such incidents are incredibly
rare, similar episodes have occurred
previously – Southwest itself suffered a
near-identical failure over the Gulf of Mexico
in August 2016. Notably the final reportfrom this incident is still to be released and some resulting
safety recommendations remain outstanding. Building
on service bulletins issued by CFM in March and June
2017, the FAA proposed inspections aimed at preventing
engine failures such as that suffered by flight 1380 –
including ultrasonically inspecting blades in CFM56-7Bs
that had accumulated more than 15,000 cycles since a
shop visit – last August. The industry was in general
agreement with the proposed action, but the AD is yet
to be finalised having been tied up in a lengthy federal
review process and subject to comments from airlines,
some of which requested more time to complete
mandated inspections.
Investigators are now working to establish whether the
affected engine from flight 1380 would have been subject
to the pending action. It’s entirely possible the proposed
AD may have made little difference in this instance –
information released by Southwest on the day of the
accident suggests the powerplant in question had
accumulated 10,000 cycles since its last overhaul,
significantly fewer than the 15,000-cycle threshold
mooted by the FAA. But given that the
nature and scale of the problem will not
be readily apparent until the global fleet
has been inspected, it does beg the
question as to whether lessons could
have been learnt and fixes put in place, or
indeed the accident avoided entirely, had
it been possible to issue the AD earlier.Craig West
EditorTHIS PHOTO:
Southwest Airlines
Boeing 737.
ANGELO BUFALINOThe Team
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