Southwest Expects Minor Disruptions as It Inspects Engines -- 3rd Update
April 23 2018 - 7:49PM
Dow Jones News
By Robert Wall
Southwest Airlines Co. said it expected a small number of delays
or cancellations each day this week as it conducts engine checks in
the wake of an accident that killed a passenger, while other
airlines also have stepped up their inspections.
The largest carrier of domestic passengers said about 40 flights
were scratched Sunday while the airline checked engines on some of
its Boeing Co. 737 planes. The cancellations represented about 1%
of its planned Sunday schedule, Southwest said.
"We anticipate minimal delays or cancellations each day this
week due to the inspections; as a point of reference, last week's
inspections affected fewer than 1 percent of our 4,000 scheduled
flights each day," Southwest said in a statement on Monday.
The airline's Flight 1380 last Tuesday suffered an engine
failure that spewed parts into the fuselage of the plane, damaged a
wing and broke a cabin window. The accident killed passenger
Jennifer Riordan.
Accident investigators believe a fan blade on the CFM56-7B
engine suffered cracks that led the component to fail during the
flight from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Dallas Love Field. The
plane made an emergency landing in Philadelphia. The accident was
similar to a nonfatal incident on a Southwest flight in 2016.
U.S. and European aviation regulators ordered emergency
inspections of hundreds of Boeing 737 engines last week knowing
that the National Transportation Safety Board was poised to issue
nonbinding recommendations. Crash investigators at the NTSB were
prepared to urge ultrasound inspections in the wake of the
Southwest accident.
But the Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation
Safety Agency beat investigators to the punch. The FAA and European
agency on Friday said airlines would have to perform ultrasound
inspections within 20 days for some older engines. Regulators are
considering expanding the ultrasound checks to an additional 2,000
newer engines by August.
FAA officials have been on the defensive because they failed to
finalize enhanced inspection procedures before last week's
accident. The agency proposed stepped-up checks of a limited number
of CFM engines last summer and was in the process of drafting a
final mandatory order when the engine rupture occurred.
The NTSB, for its part, has come under criticism from regulators
and independent safety experts for allegedly slow progress
investigating a similar 2016 Southwest engine accident.
Europe's largest budget airline, Ryanair Holdings PLC, a big
operator of Boeing Co. 737 planes, said Monday it expected to
complete newly mandated engine checks without any impact on
flights.
Engine maker CFM International, a joint venture of General
Electric Co. and France's Safran SA, on Friday issued its own
upgraded inspection guidance, and said Monday that they were aiding
60 airlines on the inspection efforts.
--Doug Cameron and Andy Pasztor contributed to this article.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 23, 2018 19:34 ET (23:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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