SWA seems to be having a rough go of it lately

[Brisketexan 105,189]

Not even close to Sully but she did a good job.  Compound emergencies are never simple. Prioritize and attack.  I am sure her Navy training helped out greatly.  

Yeah, not nearly the crisis, but still complex and she stayed cooler than Fonzie.

[phdhorn 6,224]

3 hours ago, SideSlip said:

Thousands of feet in a minute?  That sounds scary!

Heh, considering the average descent rate of the 737-400 is 1800-2000 feet per minute I'd say it's sorta kinda scary.  Considering that going beyond 2000 feet/m is getting into difficult territory, my guess is she simply descended at the normal rate - "thousands" of feet per minute!!!!

[phdhorn 6,224]

And, after the crisis.. comes the lawyers... note the bolded...
 

 

Southwest passengers could collect millions after deadly ordeal

John Bacon, USA TODAYPublished 3:04 p.m. ET April 19, 2018 | Updated 5:21 p.m. ET April 19, 2018

 

Airlines began inspecting Boeing 737 engines after an explosion killed a passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight. Aleksandra Michalska reports. Newslook

(Photo: Marla Brose, The Albuquerque Journal via AP)

CONNECTTWEETLINKEDIN 17COMMENTEMAILMORE

Despite the praise Southwest Airlines is drawing from passengers for the valiant efforts of its crew during the deadly ordeal of Flight 1380, the airline probably still faces tens of millions of dollars in legal damages from those on board, experts say.

The Dallas-bound Boeing 737 was not far out of New York when an engine blew apart, firing shrapnel along the fuselage and smashing a window. A heroic emergency landing in Philadelphia followed, but one passenger was killed, seven wounded and the rest rattled by the episode.

"The airline will be responsible for the maintenance of the aircraft," says Jonathan Johnson, an Atlanta lawyer who has handled aviation cases for 25 years. "Clearly there was a problem with the engine that was not rectified."

Johnson says lawyers for the passengers will most likely target Southwest Airlines as opposed to other parties involved such as Boeing or the the engine's builder, a joint-venture led by General Electric. By law, he said, Southwest has the "highest duty of care" toward the passengers they fly.

Southwest's insurance carriers likely will pay the bulk of any bill that comes due, he said.

David Katzman, a pilot and aviation lawyer whose firm includes an office in Philadelphia, said the engine inspections will be a crucial component in determining what went wrong. The NTSB has focused on metal fatigue on a fan blade that broke in the engine.

Last year, Southwest Airlines opposed a recommendation by the engine manufacturerto require ultrasonic inspections of fan blades in the engines within 12 months, saying it needed more time to  do the work.

Katzman says the blade would have started cracking, then would have taken time to break off. He wondered aloud how many times the plane flew after the initial crack.

"We have been dealing with metal fatigue since the Copper Age," Katzman said. "Fatigue starts with a crack and propagates. It takes time, it begins to fail, then it fails."

Avi Cohen, a lawyer in Nassau County, N.Y., says damages to the family of Jennifer Riordan, the flight's lone fatality, could run into eight figures — tens of millions of dollars.

Riordan was sucked halfway out a broken window, witnesses said. Two men pulled her back into the aircraft, but CPR failed to revive her.

"There are no apologies that would make the family of Jennifer Riordan whole again," Cohen said. "Nor will they be able to provide a defense for this gruesome death."

Lawyers generally must wait 45 days before reaching out to passengers involved in aviation accidents. Johnson, however, said he already has been contacted by a family on the flight.

"They are telling me about the horrible symptoms they are facing," he said. "Nightmares reliving the incident, reactions to loud noises, things that can affect them the rest of their lives."

[Bobby_Batronic 1,994]

30 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

Heh, considering the average descent rate of the 737-400 is 1800-2000 feet per minute I'd say it's sorta kinda scary.  Considering that going beyond 2000 feet/m is getting into difficult territory, my guess is she simply descended at the normal rate - "thousands" of feet per minute!!!!

I would call 2500 fpm on a 3/1 descent path extremely normal for an airliner. Anything more than 3500 fpm in a large plane is usually indicative of poor planning or being shot out of the air, but it’s extremely common in the corporate world. 

 

Pax cant tell how fast you’re descending if it’s done smoothly. The problem of descending quickly without exceeding a speed limitation seems more pronounced in the big birds. 

Edited April 19, 2018 by Bobby_Batronic

[El Diablo 4,232]

49 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

I would call 2500 fpm on a 3/1 descent path extremely normal for an airliner. Anything more than 3500 fpm in a large plane is usually indicative of poor planning or being shot out of the air, but it’s extremely common in the corporate world. 

 

Pax cant tell how fast you’re descending if it’s done smoothly. The problem of descending quickly without exceeding a speed limitation seems more pronounced in the big birds. 

When you say "problem" do you just mean the associated sensations?

[Bobby_Batronic 1,994]

14 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

When you say "problem" do you just mean the associated sensations?

No. A passenger won’t be able to tell if done smoothly. Big planes don’t like to go down and slow down at the same time. They’re slicker than they look. 

[skipperj 377]

Sounds like your mom.

[Buzzrock 14,936]

All joking aside, and assuming it turns out to be either a freak thing, a mx mistake, or a manufacturing defect, and not losing track of the tragedy of it, it's... good for the industry or whatever that the pilot who "saved the day" (I'm sure we'll find out more about that) is a woman.  I was just talking with a woman who said that even recently, she got several comments about how women don't belong in the left seat while taking basic pilot training.

This isn’t meant to be disparaging: did she do anything a drone couldn’t have done? I always figured it would be easier to create self-flying airliners before cars, but it will be a long time before people are comfortable with that.

[Buzzrock 14,936]

My theory is SWA does more cycles, shorter segments, and operates from some short runways. More full thrust takeoffs than most operators of the 737. That has to put extra stress on those blades. Just my theory.

My dad is a pilot and has always expressed concern that SWA’s turn-and-burn model was a little dangerous.

Also, he’s ex-USAF and vastly prefers when he has another ex-military person in the right seat. They are trained to be much more consistent and crisp, a lot less casual.

[Ghost of LL 15,539]

My dad is a pilot and has always expressed concern that SWA’s turn-and-burn model was a little dangerous.

Also, he’s ex-USAF and vastly prefers when he has another ex-military person in the right seat. They are trained to be much more consistent and crisp, a lot less casual.

Southwest has been flying for damned near 50 years without a passenger death. I think that indicates that your dad’s concerns are unfounded.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Celery Man 20,982]

2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

 

This isn’t meant to be disparaging: did she do anything a drone couldn’t have done? I always figured it would be easier to create self-flying airliners before cars, but it will be a long time before people are comfortable with that.

 

From what has come out so far that I've seen, it wasn't an amazing bit of flying or anything.  Although actually, just the part where she was cool as a cucumber in the face of a blown engine, cabin depressurization, and a likely death - that likely flies in the face of what a lot of the negative ideas people might have about female pilots are.  As for self-flying airliners, I think that that's basically no problem except for when shit hits the fan and you don't want to rely on a system that may or may not be busted.  I'm not a pilot however.

 

And yeah, I get people want to be a part of the story and freak out about Southwest and question things specific to what they do, but that is an airline that has its shit together.  I'm really curious to see what exactly went wrong (or what could have caught this) with maintenance as they were performing it and a blade that was suffering from metal fatigue.

[skipperj 377]

Basically, people are surprised she didn’t act like a woman.

[Brisketexan 105,189]

Basically, people are surprised she didn’t act like a woman.

Well...I probably would have.

My plane blows a major piece off, I may give a good womanly scream or twelve.

[Hagbard Celine 10,903]

12 hours ago, DaysOff said:

My theory is SWA does more cycles, shorter segments, and operates from some short runways. More full thrust takeoffs than most operators of the 737. That has to put extra stress on those blades. Just my theory.

There have been less than 10, ten total, exploding engine events in US commercial aviation since the deployment of high-bypass turbofans.

Yes the LUV culture is very "navy".... use the gas and the brakes as much as possible, whereas the AA culture is all about hypermiling.

But everyone uses maximum power to get off the ground.

It's not the cycles either.   The reliability and safety factor of modern jet engines is beyond six sigma.

This was LUV's first passenger fatality in it's history, and the airline is almost 50 years old.

The unfortunate pax won the negative lottery.  In fact you have a better chance of hitting powerball than you do of getting sucked out of a plane due to mechanical or structural failure.

[Hagbard Celine 10,903]

10 hours ago, SideSlip said:

Thousands of feet in a minute?  That sounds scary!

Deliberate maximum descent by the pilot to get to 14000 as fast as possible.

[Hagbard Celine 10,903]

9 hours ago, shakahorn said:

That's similar to at least part of what was attributed to the Aloha incident.  Lots of short interisland flights cause more stress.

airframe fatigue due to cycles and compressor blade failure due to cycles are not the same thing.  737 construction was modified as a result of aloha 243.

wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243

[Hagbard Celine 10,903]

9 hours ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Good thing SWA isn’t about to crawl into Hawaiian’s kitchen and start doing inter island hops. 

in the case of aloha 243, it was the construction method on early 732s and the salt air due to operating 100% in a coastal environment.

[Hagbard Celine 10,903]

3 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

Southwest has been flying for damned near 50 years without a passenger death. I think that indicates that your dad’s concerns are unfounded.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I too don't believe the LUV culture is a safety issue but LUV spends a lot more on shoes and pads then anyone else.

[El Diablo 4,232]

1 hour ago, Hagbard Celine said:

I too don't believe the LUV culture is a safety issue but LUV spends a lot more on shoes and pads then anyone else.

I just know that the first time I ever flew commercial, they were the greatest thing in the sky. It was 1978 and they were like Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders but in an airplane.

Edited April 20, 2018 by El Diablo

[Bobby_Batronic 1,994]

2 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

There have been less than 10, ten total, exploding engine events in US commercial aviation since the deployment of high-bypass turbofans.

Yes the LUV culture is very "navy".... use the gas and the brakes as much as possible, whereas the AA culture is all about hypermiling.

But everyone uses maximum power to get off the ground.

It's not the cycles either.   The reliability and safety factor of modern jet engines is beyond six sigma.

This was LUV's first passenger fatality in it's history, and the airline is almost 50 years old.

The unfortunate pax won the negative lottery.  In fact you have a better chance of hitting powerball than you do of getting sucked out of a plane due to mechanical or structural failure.

Actually, it’s rare that anyone uses maximum power to get off the ground. Probably 90% of the takeoffs performed today are Flex takeoffs using a power setting that still meets runway and climb performance requirements while also asking less of the motors. I think I’ve done maybe 3 actual TOGA power takeoffs in the last year. Maybe. 

[wood 11,231]

2 hours ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Actually, it’s rare that anyone uses maximum power to get off the ground. Probably 90% of the takeoffs performed today are Flex takeoffs using a power setting that still meets runway and climb performance requirements while also asking less of the motors. I think I’ve done maybe 3 actual TOGA power takeoffs in the last year. Maybe. 

Right. Wasn't Texas International ("Fly for Peanuts" ... the guys who originated the model SWA is built on) the carrier that made this popular? My dad worked maintenance for TIA before they acquired Continental. I remember him telling me about the reduced-power takeoffs when we first moved to Austin in '77.

[wood 11,231]

8 hours ago, Celery Man said:

And yeah, I get people want to be a part of the story and freak out about Southwest and question things specific to what they do, but that is an airline that has its shit together.  I'm really curious to see what exactly went wrong (or what could have caught this) with maintenance as they were performing it and a blade that was suffering from metal fatigue.

It takes some pretty thorough processes & scrutiny to catch something like this in the blades, and they do undergo testing at regular intervals. The FAA is stepping up the testing schedule of this engine type, but I imagine it will takes months or longer before all the engines have been checked.

If my dad were still around, he could tell us all about this stuff in detail. He ran the Continental IAH hub maintenance for a long time, and then went on to be the liaison between Continental & GE Caledonian in Scotland, who refurbished GE powerplants for CAL. Serious professionals. That place was unreal. So clean, like a lab. You could have eaten off the floors with no worries if you had to... /csb

Edited April 20, 2018 by wood

[Homercles 10,206]

Actually, it’s rare that anyone uses maximum power to get off the ground. Probably 90% of the takeoffs performed today are Flex takeoffs using a power setting that still meets runway and climb performance requirements while also asking less of the motors. I think I’ve done maybe 3 actual TOGA power takeoffs in the last year. Maybe. 

 

I’ve actually been wondering if that’s a part of the problem...not that a one-in-a-million event like this needs to stop the huge fuel and maintenance savings from FLEX/AT takeoffs.

 

If they’d throttled that baby to 100% N1 on takeoff, would that blade have separated on the ground before V1 and with less airspeed, no pressurization such that no one dies?

 

From what I’ve read from the past few blade events on those engines, using a reduced power takeoff usually leads to the highest N1 right before top of climb...which is where this flight was I believe.

 

Obviously that’s just an intellectual exercise as thousands of engines do this everyday with zero issue so we will likely find a metallurgical or QA or maintenance problem after they scope a huge amount of those blades.

 

And that containment ring around the fan looks mostly intact, and there’s a lot of slat damage. Maybe a piece of the cowling hit that window? I can’t imagine the vibration of that thing as the fan spun down or windmilled missing a blade. That wasn’t a fun time.

[CooterBrown 18,022]

FAA just issued a statement that CFM engines surpassing a set number of takeoffs and landing will undergo inspections for metal fatigue in the fan blades. 

Wonder if the inspections started last night. At Love last night, they took several planes in for unscheduled maintenance and delayed flights. They made a big deal about it when they announced it.

[Homercles 10,206]

Looks like it was the vowel and not the blade that hit the fuse. From NTSB

Sumwalt said that an inspection of the airplane and cowling parts showed that the engine debris had struck the wing. "We can see paint transfer—we can see blue paint transfer, we can see a little bit of red paint transfer, and sure enough, on the cowling, there is a red line that says 'hoist here' for maintenance to know where to hoist the engine... so we know that's some of that cowling coming off and hitting the leading edge of that wing."

[Celery Man 20,982]

Is that informative at all for what part failed?  That could still be consistent with metal fatigue = blade fail = engine shreds = cowling disintegrates and takes out window?

 

 

[Bobby_Batronic 1,994]

2 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

 

Wonder if the inspections started last night. At Love last night, they took several planes in for unscheduled maintenance and delayed flights. They made a big deal about it when they announced it.

 

I’m sure they did. SWA is a master at PR and shaping their image. 

[CooterBrown 18,022]

On 4/18/2018 at 6:45 PM, Brisketexan said:

That's my guess.  Shrapnel that went through the window hit her in the head, and she was gone before she went out the window.  Which would be merciful.

I was thinking getting sucked head first against the inside wall may have done it.

[Richter 2,261]

I survived my SW flight last night.  I know you were all very concerned.

[PvilleStang 2,917]

Your avatar didn't, but we're okay with that.

[Homercles 10,206]

Is that informative at all for what part failed?  That could still be consistent with metal fatigue = blade fail = engine shreds = cowling disintegrates and takes out window?

 

 

 

Yep that’s exactly what I meant.

 

There’s a high strength band around the damaged fan that seems intact (shown above as fan cowl)...but the huge impact of a shedded blade may have damaged that inlet cowling, either separating immediately or the massive vibrations of the off-balance fan spinning at something like 5,000+ rpm caused it to bust off and strike the fuselage.

[High Plains Drifter 11,050]

23 hours ago, Celery Man said:

She does get around more than a Southwest 737

More cycles with shorter segments?

[Steel Shank 9,430]

Statesman had an article on the pilot today. She sounds like a true leader. Flew F18s.

 

BOERNE, Texas —

Tammie Jo Shults was determined to "break into the club" of male military aviators.

One of the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, Shults flew training missions as an enemy pilot during Operation Desert Storm, while working with other women to see a rule excluding them from combat flights repealed.

Twenty-five years later, Shults was at the controls of the Dallas-bound Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 Tuesday when it made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after one of the engines on the Boeing 737 exploded while the plane was traveling 500 mph (800 kph) at 30,000 feet (9144 m) with 149 people on board.

Shrapnel hit the plane and passengers said they had to rescue a woman who was being blown out of a damaged window. The woman later died of blunt force trauma to her head, neck and torso.

Shults calmly relayed details about the crisis to air traffic controllers, and passengers commended her handling of the situation.

"Everybody is talking about Tammie Jo and how cool and calm she was in a crisis, and that's just Tammie Jo," said Rachel Russo, a friend from Shults' church in Boerne, Texas, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of San Antonio. "That's how she's wired."

Shults and the other pilot on board, First Officer Darren Ellisor, said in a statement Wednesday that they were simply doing their jobs.

"On behalf of the entire Crew, we appreciate the outpouring of support from the public and our coworkers as we all reflect on one family's profound loss," the two pilots said, adding that their "hearts are heavy."

Shults was commissioned into the Navy in 1985 and reached the rank of lieutenant commander, said Commander Ron Flanders, spokesman for Naval Air Forces in San Diego.

She was among the few to learn to fly the F/A-18 Hornet, a single-seat jet and the Navy's premier strike fighter aircraft, a privilege reserved for elite pilots, according to retired Navy helicopter pilot Andi Sue Phillips.

"When you pull those g's, you can actually feel your organs slamming on the inside of your ribs," Phillips said. "It's exhausting to put your body through those maneuvers."

Phillips said that that there was a lot of resistance for women to fly jets and for Shults "to fly a fighter aircraft when nobody even wanted her there is pretty amazing."

Women aviators were excluded from combat missions until the month after Shults got off active duty in March 1993. Flanders said Shults flew during Operation Desert Storm trainings as an aggressor enemy pilot, helping "male pilots hone their skills."

"Obviously it was frustrating," said Veteran Navy combat aviator Linda Maloney, who became among the first women to join a combat military flying squadron and was deployed to the Arabian Gulf. "We go through the same training that the guys do, and our hope was the Navy would allow us to fly in combat at some point."

Maloney featured Shults in her book, "Military Fly Moms," along with the stories and photos of 69 other women U.S. military veterans.

Shults wrote in the book about her determination to "break into the club" of male military aviators.

"There did not seem to be a demand for women pilots," she said, adding that her Hornet flight training squadron did not share her commander's "open-mindedness about flying with women."

Russo and Staci Thompson, who has known Shults for about 20 years and was nanny to her two children when they were small, said she "loved" her military career but has alluded to frustrations and challenges that came with it.

They also said she embraced those experiences to make her stronger and guide her into a role as a mentor to young female pilots or girls thinking about a military career.

"She learned a lot about overcoming things as a woman in a male-dominated field," Russo said.

Shults grew up in a New Mexico ranch near Holloman Air Force Base, and was a 1983 graduate of MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas, where she earned degrees in biology and agribusiness.

Her husband, Dean Shults, also is a Southwest pilot.

"She's a formidable woman, as sharp as a tack," said Gary Shults, a dentist in San Antonio. "My brother says she's the best pilot he knows."

[Buzzrock 14,936]

 

I’ve actually been wondering if that’s a part of the problem...not that a one-in-a-million event like this needs to stop the huge fuel and maintenance savings from FLEX/AT takeoffs.

 

If they’d throttled that baby to 100% N1 on takeoff, would that blade have separated on the ground before V1 and with less airspeed, no pressurization such that no one dies?

 

From what I’ve read from the past few blade events on those engines, using a reduced power takeoff usually leads to the highest N1 right before top of climb...which is where this flight was I believe.

 

Obviously that’s just an intellectual exercise as thousands of engines do this everyday with zero issue so we will likely find a metallurgical or QA or maintenance problem after they scope a huge amount of those blades.

 

And that containment ring around the fan looks mostly intact, and there’s a lot of slat damage. Maybe a piece of the cowling hit that window? I can’t imagine the vibration of that thing as the fan spun down or windmilled missing a blade. That wasn’t a fun time.

 

I lost a blade on a bush hog once and the tractor almost slung me off. That was about 2,000 rpm. I can’t even imagine.

[RPM 26,330]

5,000 RPM? I would have guessed the engine idles faster than that. 

[Hagbard Celine 10,903]

On 4/20/2018 at 3:17 AM, Bobby_Batronic said:

Actually, it’s rare that anyone uses maximum power to get off the ground. Probably 90% of the takeoffs performed today are Flex takeoffs using a power setting that still meets runway and climb performance requirements while also asking less of the motors. I think I’ve done maybe 3 actual TOGA power takeoffs in the last year. Maybe. 

remind us again what you drive?

[Celery Man 20,982]

probably a 737 if I'm remembering our pilots correctly.  or maybe i'm thinking of chuy...

[Bobby_Batronic 1,994]

20 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

remind us again what you drive?

Several flavors of Airbus, but I’m also type rated in a 737 and a few other things too. 

If you want some fun you can look up a double derated takeoff where the engines produce just enough power to clear the far end of the runway by 35 feet. I’m not saying it’s wise, but it’s out there. As for Flex takeoffs, well, they’re here to stay as long as performance or environmental conditions allow. 

[staboner 4,984]

and an emergency landing just now with another flight and a broken window. don't think anyone fell out doe

[Celery Man 20,982]

damn, when it rains

[UnivTex34 1,763]

https://twitter.com/ewolbrom/status/991694896011644930

Edited May 2, 2018 by UnivTex34

[AUS-97HORN 11,812]

the OUTSIDE window cracked, no loss of pressure and a relatively normal landing in cleveland instead of Newark where they will get on another plane to go on to Newark

[hayden_horn 11,365]

damn, rerouted through cleveland on the way to newark. talk about stacking shit on shit

[Bobby_Batronic 1,994]

Just now, hayden_horn said:

damn, rerouted through cleveland on the way to newark. talk about stacking shit on shit

That’s what I was thinking. Definitive case for a cash award for pain and suffering. 

[Brisketexan 105,189]

21 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

damn, rerouted through cleveland on the way to newark. talk about stacking shit on shit

College Station was just too far out of the way.

[RPM 26,330]

[Trey3216 15,350]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

College Station was just too far out of the way.

Ran out of miles