Originally Posted by
DenverBrian
He's actually pretty polished in speaking style. I counted exactly one um and one uh in his latest update. (Admittedly, he's doing multiple takes...but everyone on the web does that.)
He brings up interesting points regarding the emphasis on contained blade failures. Sure, the engine didn't throw debris - but by slicing through the ring cowling, causing it to fall off, it immediately created a situation where the entire cowling would disintegrate and peel off. And indeed, it appears that pieces did create holes in the fuselage. A bit higher and those holes are in the passenger compartment, causing decompression.
Keeping the cowling intact when a fan blade breaks probably needs to be a new emphasis point for the FAA.
Yep -- while those holes are in skin and the flying debris likely wouldn't have caused a real structural problem, a few feet higher and the same impact can break a window, which is what led to the Southwest passenger's death. And that's in addition to being fortunate not to have hurt anyone on the ground.
Good to ground them and get the underlying issue fixed after several similar incidents. We've spent so much effort over the last decades to have a very safe commercial air system; no reason to accept known dangerous situations like this even if relatively rare.