Person dies in Southwest Plane after engine breakdown - Trump to blame!

[Jimmy Higgins]

With all of the recent noise in DC clearly taking its toll on Trump's ability to act as a functional President, we have now seen a human life be taken as part of that toll.

One person has died after Southwest plane engine failed in midair, forcing an emergency landing at the Philadelphia International Airport this morning, officials said.

The plane was en route from New York City's LaGuardia International Airport to Dallas Love Field when passenger Matt Tranchin said he saw a "huge explosion and glass shattering three rows ahead of me."

It wasn't five months ago when Trump was heralding his incredible accomplishment of protecting all flights in America.

Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!

Trump was able to ensure that not a single person in America died while on a passenger jet in the US. Such an accomplishment can not be celebrated enough.

But with the Russia investigation continuing to bring forth newer and wilder information, the President is clearly becoming overwhelmed and incapable of acting as the same man who single handedly protected every life in jets in 2017. It is no coincidence that this accident occurred on the same day the James Comey book was released. Instead of using his attention to be very strict on commercial aviation, Trump was all to distracted with the James Comey interviews and book reviews. Trump published several Tweets at a time he should have had his head up at the sky.

We can't merely stop the world to make certain the President can protect our airspace. So we need to ask ourselves, if Trump can no longer perform his duties of the office, including ensuring no one dies while flying in jets, can we afford to keep this man as our President? Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have some serious sole searching to do.

 

[Jayjay]

As far as I know there haven't been Zero deaths since World War 2.

 

[Elixir]

Yikes. Per reports, the woman was sucked out the window part way. Not surprising that she died; if her head was out the window at ambient pressure of the altitude and the rest of her body was inside the plane. Instant massive cerebral hemorrhage would be likely... what a terrible way to go!
Sad for her family

 

[Playball40]

Right?? Ugh and I have to fly Southwest on Monday.

 

[bilby]

OK folks, this is why you are expected to pay attention to the safety demo before take off:



All three of the passengers whose faces are clearly visible in this photograph are wearing their oxygen masks incorrectly - they MUST cover both mouth AND NOSE in order to work as designed.

At the altitude where the window failed (apx FL325 or 32,500 feet, during a climb to FL380), wearing a mask as shown above during a cabin decompression could cause hypoxic brain damage or even death. Luckily for these people, the pilots made a sufficiently rapid emergency decent to prevent that. But they had been shown how to put on the mask by the cabin crew only a few minutes earlier.



At first glance, it looks like the fan cowling broke away forward of the inlet fan, and that it was a piece of that cowling that penetrated the window. The damage appears to be too far forward for a fan blade failure.

 

[Jayjay]

OK folks, this is why you are expected to pay attention to the safety demo before take off:

View attachment 15427

All three of the passengers whose faces are clearly visible in this photograph are wearing their oxygen masks incorrectly - they MUST cover both mouth AND NOSE in order to work as designed.

At the altitude where the window failed (apx FL325 or 32,500 feet, during a climb to FL380), wearing a mask as shown above during a cabin decompression could cause hypoxic brain damage or even death. Luckily for these people, the pilots made a sufficiently rapid emergency decent to prevent that. But they had been shown how to put on the mask by the cabin crew only a few minutes earlier.

Not to mention a repeat lesson every freaking time they fly. It's almost amazingly stupid. And they don't seem to be using the elastic bands either (except for the person in the blue cap).

 

[RavenSky]

It wasn't five months ago when Trump was heralding his incredible accomplishment of protecting all flights in America.

Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!

Is that Trump quote real? Aside from the absolute insanity of him trying to take credit for that, it's bullshit anyway!

One person has died after a Southwest plane engine failed in midair today, marking the first accidental domestic airline fatality in nine years, said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

How can he have "the best and safest year on record" when it is exactly the same record as the previous 8 years (under President Obama).

I know this is a petty unimportant who cares kind of lie from Trump... but every fucking word out of his mouth makes my skin crawl.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is that Trump quote real?

Yes, it is the basis of my entire piece despite the awfulness that is the death of the passenger.

 

[bilby]

On second thoughts, this rather better picture does appear to show one fan blade missing.

The cowling damage is a LONG way forward, but then again, there's a lot of forward force on the fan assembly during an ascent, so a single blade flexing at the root could have moved forward before exiting through the cowling when the root finally gave way.

We will need to wait for the NTSB report to be sure. The CFM65 turbofan is a very widely used and highly reliable engine; some 30,000 of them have been built, and it is used on both the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 and 340 aircraft.

 

[Juma]

Yikes. Per reports, the woman was sucked out the window part way. Not surprising that she died; if her head was out the window at ambient pressure of the altitude and the rest of her body was inside the plane. Instant massive cerebral hemorrhage would be likely... what a terrible way to go!
Sad for her family

The pressure difference isnt the problem. (1 atm is same pressure diff as betwen surface and 10 m down in water)

Its the low pressure that makes the water in your skin/eyes/lungs etc to boil that hurts you by thst is in no way instant.

And being hit by VERY fast flying objects...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yikes. Per reports, the woman was sucked out the window part way. Not surprising that she died; if her head was out the window at ambient pressure of the altitude and the rest of her body was inside the plane. Instant massive cerebral hemorrhage would be likely... what a terrible way to go!
Sad for her family

The pressure difference isnt the problem. (1 atm is same pressure diff as betwen surface and 10 m down in water)

Its the low pressure that makes the water in your skin/eyes/lungs etc to boil that hurts you by thst is in no way instant.

And being hit by VERY fast flying objects...

It was suggested that her head hit before flying nearly out of the plane, which could have been an instant death impact. Absolutely frightening.

 

[starwater]

Makes you think twice about wanting the window seat.

 

[Playball40]

Makes you think twice about wanting the window seat.

Right? I love the window seat.

 

[Worldtraveller]

There are already preliminary reports (NTSB) that indicate they found fatigue damage on the hub where the fan blade separated. That's to be expected, in the sense that 90% of all fan failures are due to fatigue.

It's still going to be interesting to follow and see how many hours since the last inspection, where it was done, how many hours since the last overhaul, etc.

I read NTS aviation incident reports (I've read every one of them available on the web), and will be following this one.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There are already preliminary reports (NTSB) that indicate they found fatigue damage on the hub where the fan blade separated. That's to be expected, in the sense that 90% of all fan failures are due to fatigue.

Yeah, I had a fan blade break on me at home. Sure, completely unrelated, but had to center the conversation about myself somehow.

Back on-topic, how much can maintenance prevent? In general, like NASA, isn't there a number of miles per incident? How do you inspect such things like fan blade fatigue? Is this X-ray'd or just looked at?

 

[bilby]

Makes you think twice about wanting the window seat.

You still have a better chance of winning the lottery, twice, than of dying on a commercial aircraft in the USA in the last decade.

You would need to be seriously paranoid to think once about it.

The cab ride to the airport is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the flight.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Makes you think twice about wanting the window seat.

You still have a better chance of winning the lottery, twice, than of dying on a commercial aircraft in the USA in the last decade.

You would need to be seriously paranoid to think once about it.

The cab ride to the airport is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the flight.

It is all psychological.

You are much more likely to survive a car accident than a plane accident.

vs

You are much more likely to not be in an accident flying in plane than driving in a car.

It is just, in a plane, when it goes wrong, it can go terribly wrong and you get to spend some time regretting being on the flight. But yeah, I'm sticking to the window seat.

 

[bilby]

Makes you think twice about wanting the window seat.

You still have a better chance of winning the lottery, twice, than of dying on a commercial aircraft in the USA in the last decade.

You would need to be seriously paranoid to think once about it.

The cab ride to the airport is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the flight.

It is all psychological.

You are much more likely to survive a car accident than a plane accident.

vs

You are much more likely to not be in an accident flying in plane than driving in a car.

It is just, in a plane, when it goes wrong, it can go terribly wrong and you get to spend some time regretting being on the flight. But yeah, I'm sticking to the window seat.

Actually, you are not more likely to survive a car crash than a plane crash.

Most plane crashes don't kill anyone; and those that do rarely kill everyone on board.

As you say - it's psychological. It feels right to assume that you are more likely (or even much more likely) to survive a car crash. But it's not true. Even without the bold underline italic 'much'.

In this incident - a presumed uncontained engine failure at FL325 - there was one fatality and seven people injured, out of 149 people on board. That's a pretty high survival rate. If your car's engine or transmission exploded while at full speed on a freeway, do you think a 1:150 chance of dying would be better or worse than your actual odds? Now bear in mind that uncontained engine failure usually does not result in a breach of the fuselage - SWA1380 was a freak accident even by the standards of the already highly unlikely event of an engine failure. And even after this freak accident had occurred, passengers STILL had a better than 99.3% chance of surviving, and a 94.6% chance of being completely unharmed.

 

[Jayjay]

Makes you think twice about wanting the window seat.

Right? I love the window seat.

It's fine, if you pay up the window glass surcharge.

 

[barbos]

The cab ride to the airport is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the flight.

Such things are mentioned often but they are not true. Chances of dying while driving are actually smaller than while flying. It's when you look at chances of dying per miles traveled, cars become more dangerous. So unless your cab drive was 1000 miles or something you are wrong.