Woman partially pulled from Southwest Airlines 737 in flight

a reply to: TheRedneck

The SB/AD covers all CFM56-7B engines, regardless of cycles. What changes is the amount of time they have to inspect the engines. Once they hit 15,000 cycles, under the proposed AD in August, airlines would have six months to inspect the engine. Until they hit 15,000 cycles, they would have up to 18 months. They are still writing the SB/AD that is going to come out as a result of this accident, but it will probably be similar to that time frame.

The dovetail expands as the engine runs. The blades are built with pretty tight tolerances, but when the engine is shut down, the blades are able to move. You can hear them rattling around as the wind turns the fan. As the engine runs, the blades heat up, and the dovetail expands, locking the blade in place. That puts some wear on the dovetail, causing fatigue over time.

Under an FAA order issued today, CFM56-7B engines with 30,000 cycles or more on them have to be inspected within 20 days. That includes 352 engines on US aircraft, and 681 engines worldwide.

www.cnbc.com...

Ten 737s from Southwest arrived at Aviation Technical Services at Payne Field in Everett, Washington, probably for inspections.

Southwest cancelled 48 flights, and delayed 400 on Sunday due to accelerated engine inspections.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I have to fly southwest from atl to lax in 15 days you think flights Will be impacted still by then?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Probably in about the same numbers as they were today. They're limiting the impact while getting the inspections done as fast as they can.

a reply to: Zaphod58

so there's a chance my flight will be cancelled in two weeks. will they give ticket holders a heads up so we can make alternate arrangements. I have a connecting International flight that same evening. supposed to land in lax around noon and have a flight I ternational around midnight.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

They will have a list of flights on their website for each day.

The FAA expanded their AD. Under the new AD both the concave and convex sides of the blades must be inspected before reaching 20,000 cycles, or within 113 days. In addition it calls for inspections every 3,000 cycles after the last inspection.

The aircraft involved in this incident departed Philadelphia yesterday on its way to Payne Field in Everett, Washington. That is were Southwest is having inspections performed.

www.flightglobal.com...

NTSB investigative report (update not final).

a reply to: Zaphod58

Captain Liu Chuanjian said the Airbus A319 had been cruising mid-air when a deafening sound flooded the cockpit.

"There was no warning," he told the Chengdu Economic Daily.

"The windshield just cracked and made a loud bang. The next thing I knew, my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out."

Luckily, the co-pilot was wearing a seatbelt. He was dragged back into the chaos of the cockpit, where pressure and temperature had dropped and the equipment was failing.

BBCnews.com, May 15, 2018 - China Sichuan Airlines pilot 'half sucked out of plane' survives.

Another person partially sucked out of an airplane!

This time it was the co-pilot (wearing a seatbelt) that partially taken out of the aircraft. The plane dropped some 8,000 feet. There were passengers onboard, no serious injuries to them or the co-pilot.

Add that cracked window on the other Southwest (??) plane... what is up with airplane windows suddenly cracking??

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

This was either a manufacturing or maintenance issue. It didn't crack, the entire glass portion of the window is gone. And it's clean around the edges too. It's not like it cracked and then broke and eventually pulled the window out.

Southwest completed all inspections. They removed 20-30 blades and returned them to CFM due to issues with the coating on them, but no cracks were found.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: Zaphod58

Captain Liu Chuanjian said the Airbus A319 had been cruising mid-air when a deafening sound flooded the cockpit.

"There was no warning," he told the Chengdu Economic Daily.

"The windshield just cracked and made a loud bang. The next thing I knew, my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out."

Luckily, the co-pilot was wearing a seatbelt. He was dragged back into the chaos of the cockpit, where pressure and temperature had dropped and the equipment was failing.

BBCnews.com, May 15, 2018 - China Sichuan Airlines pilot 'half sucked out of plane' survives.

Another person partially sucked out of an airplane!

This time it was the co-pilot (wearing a seatbelt) that partially taken out of the aircraft. The plane dropped some 8,000 feet. There were passengers onboard, no serious injuries to them or the co-pilot.

Add that cracked window on the other Southwest (??) plane... what is up with airplane windows suddenly cracking??

from 72 degrees to -40 in seconds!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

That was actually the original windscreen, installed 11 years ago.

a reply to: Zaphod58


Cracks are bad!

Good to hear that they did not find any more.

Any reason (besides IP) that people are not doing the Boeing thing and using ceramics (either alone or mixed) especially in high stress areas like fan blades? I think only Boeing is doing it and look at the size of those engines now! Fewer blades, bigger engines, fuel efficient, all thanks to high tech ceramics.

Just wondering.

Thanks for the windscreen update! Along with something crawling out of the toilet to grab me and pull me under, going out a hole in a jet while in flight is one of my top terrors!!



a reply to: howtonhawky

All while dropping 8,000 to 10,000 feet! Heck of a roller coaster ride! Everything floating around you and freezing. I like what the pilot said, the plane shaking so hard he "couldn't read the gauges"!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Boeing isn't using the CMCs, the engine manufacturers are. Boeing and Airbus just order them based on what the airlines want. They're still in the fairly early stages of them though. GE just opened a plant for making the CMCs in Alabama.

a reply to: Zaphod58


Nice to have a person who knows to ask my dumb questions to!

Early stages... so you think this (CMC) will be "next big thing" so to speak. Especially if there are more blades cracking and whipping off into the cowlings and/or fuselage?

Again, just wondering. And thinking about "the future" as is my wont to do.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

CMCs are big because they're light, and can withstand higher temps. But right now, they're being used on non-rotating parts in the LEAP and GE9X. The only engine to take advantage of rotating CMCs is the ADVENT demonstrator.

GE is right in that we're reaching the end of what we can do with what we've got and if they're going to see fuel savings they need newer and lighter materials. The GE9X is aiming for something like 10% better fuel burn over the GE90. The only way to do that is to lighten the engine.

a reply to: Zaphod58


I did a little digging and ceramic coatings are just now being applied to cars. I probably jumped the gun on its overall use out in the real world. Besides non-stick pans that is!

A researcher at Sandia found a room temperature method for applying a ceramic coating using propelled nano ceramics in a gas medium while under vacuum. The coating is blasted onto the surface and pushes the propellant out of the way. But that is more for circuitry and things that cannot stand being heated up like plastics.

That GE9X is a thing of beauty! (If you can say such a thing about a jet engine!)

I am guessing, but the skin of a hypersonic jet would probably be another good place ceramic coating. But that talk belongs in another thread!

As always, thanks for the info! Sorry if we took a side track with this talk of ceramics and jet engines! Maybe, one day, the windscreen will get an upgrade to something crazy like metallic glass or ceramics of some sort!