A fatigue crack in a fan blade in the engine of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 was to blame for the chain of events that ended with an uncontained engine failure on Southwest Flight 1380 and the death of a passenger, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said today.
In deciding on the probable cause of the accident, the board noted that the fatigue crack in the dovetail of the blade in the airplane’s left engine — one of two CFM International CFM56-7B engines that powered the 737 — resulted in failure of the fan blade. The fan blade failure in turn caused the loss of parts of the engine inlet and fan cowling, the NTSB said. Fragments of the cowling struck the 737’s fuselage and a cabin window, blowing out the window and causing a rapid depressurization. A passenger seated next to the window was killed when she was partially ejected from the airplane in the April 17, …
