- 6/19/2025
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00:00this flight became a life-threatening crisis in seconds an explosion rock
00:11Southwest flight 1380 the vibration was so severe I was not able to see any of
00:19the instruments throughout the airplane it was just screams of terror the cabin
00:26depressurizes I could feel the air being sucked out of my lungs everything became
00:33very very hot and very very cold at the same time as the pilots fight to regain
00:38control of their airplane you still got it flight attendants make a horrifying discovery
00:56Southwest Airlines flight 1380 is boarding for a trip to Dallas Texas Andrew Needham is
01:26a firefighter and paramedic on his way home after a family vacation in New York City we
01:31took a trip to kind of as a year-end to the completion of my paramedic certification
01:36school and so we decided that it would be a family getaway row 14 just on the right
01:42Jennifer Reardon is returning home from a business trip to New York 144 passengers
01:50settle into this sold-out flight in the cockpit the flight crew prepares the Boeing 737 for departure
02:03let's start the pre-flight procedures I'm on it captain Tammy Jo Schultz has been flying 737s for 24
02:11years we're bound she's no ordinary flight commander Tammy Jo Schultz she is a formal naval aviator flew
02:23during the Gulf War operation desert storm and also blue aerial firefighting aircraft before joining
02:30Southwest first officer Darren Ellis or has been with Southwest for 10 years he's a former Air Force major I
02:38love to fly we get to see the most amazing sights and be in a different place every time you go fly
02:48your leg this one's mine it's the second day of a four-day pairing for the crew first officer
02:58Ellis all will be the pilot flying this leg I was starting my day in the cockpit ready to go fly it was
03:06a beautiful day in LaGuardia actually the weather was was fantastic the crew flew in earlier today from
03:13Nashville the four-hour trip to Dallas will be their second and final flight of the day
03:18flight attendant Rachel Fernheimer started with Southwest Airlines just two years ago I love
03:29my job I would have to say it's the people my favorite thing is to just kind of just be there
03:34for them and talk them through what they need me to or even just to have a laugh with them or cry with
03:40them Rachel is working with her colleague Shanique Mallory at 10 42 a.m. flight 1380 takes off on time
03:59to turbofan engines power the Boeing 737 into the sky the airplane was almost to maximum weight the gas
04:20tanks were near full capacity and when you're in heavy airplane it does affect your performance it makes the
04:28airplane less responsive as flight 1380 climbs to cruising altitude controllers at LaGuardia hand the
04:37flight over to New York area controllers 12-west 1380 contact New York Center 133.47 copy that 1380
04:4620 minutes after takeoff thank you everything changed we had a very large bang we had multiple warnings
05:15going off in the cockpit and a very severe vibration throughout the entire plane this flight went from
05:24being an absolutely routine flight into Dallas into a life-threatening crisis in seconds the plane
05:33depressurizes I could feel the air being sucked out of my lungs immediately it was very disorienting it
05:44was something that I've never had in my entire flying career first officer Ellis or struggles to control
05:53the aircraft as it banks steeply to the left I immediately grabbed the yoke to stop the roll
05:59I was not able to see any of the instruments because the vibration was so severe it was just a blur of colors and so I can't see anything
06:14still got it luckily it was a it was a clear day a very clear horizon and I was able to roll out of
06:23bank and recover the airplane at 32,000 feet the pilots need to determine what's wrong with their plane
06:37there's a lot of vibration the climb rate decreases the engine rpm was rolling back they very quickly knew
06:44that they had an engine problem emergency descent first officer Ellis or reduces engine power and begins
06:53a steep descent I know that we have a pressurization problem I know we have some sort of engine problem
07:00I don't know what else is going on but I know we need to start on our way down
07:04Southwest 1380 has an engine fire and is descending Captain Schultz updates New York air traffic control
07:14smoke in the cockpit could indicate an engine fire Tammy Jo thought it was smoke I did not think it was smoke at
07:21the time explosive decompression causes a condensation in the air which basically looks like a fog all right
07:29southwest 1380 okay where would you like to go to which airport give us a vector to your nearest airfield
07:37okay we knew we needed to land the airplane as soon as practical I looked on my map display and saw
07:45two airfield circles that were very close except they were very small airports they may not have
07:54the appropriate fire and rescue crews there they may not have a long enough runway for us
08:05first officer Ellis or sees another option 70 miles away it's an airport he knows well
08:11I just pointed on my map to Philadelphia and she saw it immediately
08:17flight 1380 is now falling fast
08:27unsure of what's wrong with their aircraft the pilots update the passengers
08:34ladies and gentlemen this is your captain we're going into Philadelphia remain seated thank you
08:40tell you what I'm going to take it all right as commander of the flight Captain Schultz takes control
08:48whatever she told me to do I was going to do she wanted to fly and wanted me to run the checklist and
08:54I was fine with that first officer Ellis or begins checklists for a severe engine failure or fire the
09:02problem engine engine one on the left side must be shut down before it can do any more damage
09:07auto throttle if engaged disengage that checklist calls for multiple steps disengaged you retard the
09:17throttle for the affected engine and then you have a fire warning switch which you will pull
09:26it's too easy to have something get overlooked in an emergency checklists are designed to be very
09:32efficient also ensure that the airplane remains in a safe state flight 1380 is 10 minutes away from
09:39Philadelphia International Airport and closing fast controllers in Philadelphia try to guide the flight
09:46to safety surface 1380 are you coming right in our extended file as the plane drops below 10 000 feet
09:55the crew no longer needs oxygen masks to breathe extended final the captain requests a longer approach
10:05so she and Ellis or have time to finish their checklists
10:08we got a couple of checklists to run i want to talk to the girls as well we don't know what happened
10:13back there you go talk to the girls i've got everything here you guys there hello
10:24i rang the flight attendants and i didn't get any answer i didn't know what was going on back there
10:31i got no reply from the back i'm really starting to get worried and i was so concerned
10:37that i was ready to get up to see what's going on back there before first officer Ellis or can
10:44investigate there's a call from the cabin hello
10:59flight 1380 is just 20 minutes into a four-hour flight from new york to dallas texas
11:11suddenly
11:14crisis strikes
11:18there's a very very loud noise that is repeating over and over again like a big
11:23loud pounding of the aircraft i didn't know what was happening
11:27it's metal on metal shearing grinding a noise that i hope i never have to hear again
11:34i didn't know if it was going to be heavy turbulence if it was something wrong with the plane
11:39i knew that something was not right the cabin is rapidly decompressing as the pressurized air
11:46inside the cabin rushes to escape to the low pressure atmosphere outside what happens
11:51is the air in your lungs gets pulled out as well so you exhale a lot and it's very surprising to you
12:00passengers and crew need oxygen masks to help them breathe
12:04one passenger uses his phone to film the chaos in the cabin
12:09it was just screams of of terror throughout the cabin of the airplane
12:12the noise was just immense the shaking was violent what's happening jump seats i see shaneet i didn't
12:23have time to really take a moment to look around before i was telling her to quickly take the jump seat
12:30my eyes got very heavy everything became very very hot then very very cold at the same time
12:37as the warm air that the airplane was making is evacuated and the fact that it's now 50 below zero
12:44outside it gets very cold very very quickly i could just feel a lack of oxygen surrounding me
12:52you just have to make sure that you are getting oxygen i was able to take my first good breath of
12:58oxygen before going out into the cabin without even thinking the cabin crew checks on the passengers row by row
13:0714 14. i looked every single one of them in the eye and i just said you're going to be okay we are
13:19going to make it i'm here and at that point we didn't even know if that was true
13:25at row 14 the flight attendant is stopped cold
13:32we had a passenger that was partially out of the aircraft
13:38her seat belt was the only thing that was holding her into the plane at that point
13:41because everything from the waist up was outside of the plane
13:46when an aircraft depressurizes all of that air is going to come out this now hole that was a window
13:53in the side of the airplane and it's an immense amount of force
13:57we're gonna be okay passenger jennifer riordan has been pulled part way out of the plane
14:02i was trying to pull jennifer back into the plane i remember saying it loud it's okay
14:10we have you you're going to be okay i just wanted her to somehow know that we were with her
14:17it's okay it's okay it's okay you're gonna be okay help me
14:25passenger andrew needham a firefighter and paramedic acts instinctively the thought process that was
14:31going through my head was that there was a passenger in need and i was there to provide assistance
14:37andrew needham joins fellow passenger tim mcginty in the struggle to pull jennifer riordan in
14:43my immediate reaction was to just reach in and grab for whatever i could and i was able to grab onto
14:49mrs riordan's pants i was unable to get any leverage as passengers struggle to save jennifer riordan
14:58the pilots are unaware of what's happening in the cabin you guys there hello
15:06they were actually trying to call us but we were unable to hear that they were trying to do so
15:12i got no reply from the back
15:14finally flight attendant shoneek mallory tries to make contact with the pilots hello
15:21a window is open and somebody is out the window everything pretty much just stopped
15:33it's not something that you're prepared to hear at all tammy jo and i just looked at each other
15:38and in basically shock and disbelief okay we're coming down the life of a passenger is in grave danger
15:50you want the airplane on the ground you want it stopped and you want medical people on board to help
15:55the pilots must get flight 1380 on the ground as soon as possible
15:596 000 feet over pennsylvania southwest flight 1380 has lost its left engine and suffered a rapid decompression
16:13is everyone else still in their seats strapped down everybody is still in their seats
16:18but now the pilots face another terrifying problem we've tried to help get her in
16:25i don't know what her situation is passengers are still struggling to pull jennifer reardon inside the
16:37cabin we were pulling with everything we had we weren't getting anywhere the big factor for the
16:46passenger was that they went into very high energy air it's a 300 plus mile an hour wind they would be
16:52subjected to brutal forces slow it down to 210 knots right now in the cockpit first officer ellisor has
17:01thought of a way he can help with reardon's rescue
17:06i turned to tammy joe and i said we need to slow down to 210 knots
17:13i knew that the speed of the aircraft was actually the thing that was preventing the people in the back
17:21from getting that passenger back in the plane we got her we got her first officer ellisor's hunch
17:31pays off the slower speed allows rescuers to pull the passenger back in the pilots reduced speed and
17:39and it was only at that point where we were able to to pull her back in jennifer reardon's condition is
17:48dying there was no signs of life you know i felt for a pulse and i started chest compressions
18:00it was never a sense of is she still with us it was a
18:05she's with us what can we continue to do to try to keep it this way
18:09let's get her turned in the pilots are doing everything they can to save reardon
18:20philadelphia airport is still 30 miles away we knew that we needed to get on the ground
18:27as fast as we could everything was time critical
18:32i see a lady come help us a nurse and andrew who is a emt and firefighters was starting
18:44to do compressions i knew that they were able to handle the situation
18:50can we have medical me to set the runway we have injured passengers injured passengers okay
18:55and is your plane physically on fire no it's not on fire but parts that are missing they say there's
19:00a hole and someone went out sorry there's a hole and someone went out yeah
19:09southwest 1380 it doesn't matter we'll work it out there the airport's just off to your right
19:18flight 1380 descends to 3 000 feet all right set flaps to five still 20 miles away from the airport
19:27the pilots prepare for landing you fly at a higher speed with flaps five she had less drag and less
19:35lift being produced out of the flaps as an ex-fighter pilot captain schultz knows how speed will give her
19:42more control the captain elected to use a reduced flap setting and a higher approach speed so that she
19:50was guaranteed in her mind a higher level of controllability that's five are you sure how about
19:58just 15 something tammy joe initially asked for a flaps 5 landing i question this because a flaps 15
20:06landing is what we normally would do in a single engine situation the captain is the final authority
20:13she had been flying the airplane so she knew how the airplane felt and so she said well we're going
20:20to land with flaps five give me a speed for flaps five 148 there's no guidance in the manuals for a flaps
20:27five single engine landing the pilots need to calculate the right airspeed for the maneuver 148
20:3460 plus 20 180 the only thing i knew was a flaps 15 speed and i added 20 knots probably that was too much
20:45but a little bit of extra speed is better than being slow at an altitude of just 1 000 feet and three miles
20:53from philadelphia international airport the pilots prepare for an emergency landing
20:58in the cabin two passengers are still trying to revive jennifer reardon
21:06i start seeing you know trees and grass very very quickly i realized that we were landing soon and we were landing very fast
21:16keep going the thought that crossed my mind was why am i not bracing but at the same time
21:22i didn't want to give up andrew continued to do compressions i just remember looking outside
21:29turning around and just screaming everybody heads down stay down and i walked a few rows
21:37at a time and showed the passengers their brace positions then once i realized we were landing you
21:43know much sooner than anticipated i started very quickly running to the front of the plane to try to
21:49get in my jump seat southwest 1380 runway 27 left clear to land 27 left clear to land southwest 1380
21:58it's seconds before touchdown flight 1380 is flying towards the runway at breakneck speed
22:06the approach speed was about 50 miles an hour faster than a traditional 737 landing because of the reduced flap
22:14setting speed brake the pilots are unsure of the damage to the plane they're making a high speed approach
22:28with the reverse thrust from only one engine to slow them down they might not have enough runway to stop
22:34safely 50 feet the fate of 144 passengers hangs in the balance
22:40we were coming in much faster than normal i anticipated the landing was going to be rough
22:48anything could happen to this plane right now we don't know the damage is there going to be an explosion
22:58flight 1380 races towards an emergency landing at philadelphia international airport
23:0330 feet captain schultz is a veteran navy pilot she's landed f-18 hornets in war zones but this is a landing
23:13unlike any other 10. we did not want to do a go around we wanted to make sure we were on the ground
23:20as fast as possible so that we could get medical attention to our injured passengers i was not able to
23:26make it to a jump seat before i could feel the wheels touching down i brace myself with the passenger's
23:32help of holding on to me
23:40speed brakes up the thrust reverser on their only engine deploys if the reverser doesn't work the plane
23:47could overshoot the runway we just had to be prepared for absolutely anything in my mind i had to say okay
23:56these are my exits these are my people
24:01we touched down it was a great landing thank you lord thank you thank you thank you lord
24:17i'm just gonna pull her around here to the fire trucks flight 1380 rolls to a stop
24:26i knew in that moment that okay we made it we survived
24:32but the crisis isn't over the critically injured passenger needs urgent medical attention
24:40okay listen up listen up this is the flight deck please stay in your seats
24:43emergency equipment is pulling up please stay in your seats
24:46i really didn't have much of a sense of relief i was still trying to maintain communications with
24:54the flight attendants as well as the crash and fire crew rescuers rush onto the plane they try to help
25:02jennifer reardon but it's too late
25:09jennifer reardon is the first fatality on an american airliner in more than nine years
25:16with the tragic loss of one passenger this would have been a major event but investigative agencies
25:22look at a major failure of this nature with or without a fatality as being very serious
25:30the national transportation safety board the ntsb dispatches a team to philadelphia structures team
25:36start on that window come with me the lead investigator coordinates a team of air crash experts
25:46flashlight please they were quite surprised to see the amount of damage
25:50i think was very surprising to everyone investigators quickly determine why the window in row 14 burst
25:58the left engine close by is blown to pieces it almost looked as though there had been an explosion in
26:04the front of the engine you don't typically see this sort of damage uh and and it was extensive
26:12the investigators closely examined the destroyed engine
26:14there's no sooting in the engine so it's clear there was no in-flight fire it's quickly obvious to
26:22investigators what tore the engine apart
26:28fan blade did this
26:32during normal operation a fan at the front of the engine rotates approximately 5 000 times per minute
26:3924 fan blades force air backwards to feed the engine's turbines it's a crucial part of a jet engine
26:49fan at the front of the engine uh is responsible for 90 of the thrust of the engine but one of the 24
26:57blades of the fan on the left side broke off mid-flight got impact markings here
27:03when investigators look closely at the remains of the broken fan blade they find markings they recognize
27:14you've got beach marks here they're called beach marks because it's like uh the the marks left by a
27:21tide on the beach they're the most obvious things to see
27:25the beach marks at the base of where the fan blade broke off can only mean one thing this is most likely
27:34fatigue cracking fatigue cracking is insidious it starts at a very small location very small crack
27:41and it continues to grow over time and unless this crack is detected it's going to lead to the failure of
27:46the part give me the maintenance records for the left engine as far back as you can go a metal fatigue
27:56crack on a fan blade can grow slowly over time airlines are supposed to make periodic checks so that no
28:03plane flies with a weakened fan blade fan blades are routinely removed and inspected on all aircraft
28:12and if they're if they're damaged in any way they're replaced and they're also checked to make sure that
28:19the the metal fatigue has not set in and that there's cracks this is an ongoing process but a fatigue crack
28:28in a single fan blade caused catastrophic damage to flight 1380 resulting in the death of a passenger how
28:35could that have happened ntsb investigators wonder if engineers were doing the proper maintenance to
28:44prevent a fan blade from breaking mid-flight which blade is it 13. catching a fatigue crack at an early
28:58stage is is absolutely critical because it will only get longer and longer as the engine continues
29:07operating eventually the crack will become so long that the the part is no longer able to hold itself
29:13together and that's when failure occurs airlines execute inspections during scheduled maintenance to look
29:21for any defects in the fan blades investigators study the inspection history for the fan blades in the left
29:30engine of flight 1380 they did a full overhaul in 2012 let me see they learned that all the fan blades
29:43including fan blade 13 were inspected during a major overhaul in 2012 six years before the incident on
29:51southwest 1380 during the overhaul the protective coating on each of the blades is stripped
30:00then a fluorescent dye is used to help identify any fatigue cracking
30:07fluorescent dye penetrates into the crack and the crack is visible as a sort of thin
30:14glowing line under ultraviolet light investigators review the work orders done on the fan blades
30:20during the 2012 overhaul this checks out it says they did a full inspection of blade 13
30:31fan blades on this engine were overhauled in 2012 and that means they were all removed the coatings
30:38were stripped they were inspected and then everything was reapplied and they were reinserted
30:43investigators determined that at the time of the 2012 overhaul all the fan blades were found to be in
30:51good condition but how were the fan blades maintained by southwest airlines after the overhaul they're
30:58supposed to be lubricated and visually inspected between 1500 and 3000 flights
31:04there's seven more routine checks here they're all comprehensive all done on time
31:14this was the appropriate and approved maintenance process that all technicians used at that time
31:23if fan blade 13 was checked routinely for six years and passed all its inspections investigators wonder when
31:31the crack began so what do you got have a look a microscopic examination of the fracture surface might
31:41tell them more about when the metal fatigue started i see crack was growing a fatigue crack is a brittle fracture
31:50mechanism the part looks perfectly good in terms of it's not deformed it's not bent but there's a small defect
31:57growing during the life of these fan blades they're subjected to stress the engine is started up the stress
32:06has increased to full power the fan blade is being pulled apart as it tries to go centrifugally outward
32:12this puts a lot of stress on the root the engine is shut down the stresses go away this is one cycle of
32:18loading and it's equatable to one flight cycle how long is the crack growing can you tell
32:24this is one cycle of the engine yeah let's take this up a notch
32:31here look using high magnifications investigators can see tiny tracings called striations
32:41there's thousands of them the investigators determined that each striation corresponded with one flight cycle
32:50of the engine therefore the number of striations matched the number of flights that had been done by the engine
33:01investigators tally the striations on the fractured blade that means counting tens of thousands of
33:07microscopic marks on a tiny piece of metal there's over 32 000 striations
33:15what's that tell you by counting the striations on the base of fan blade number 13 investigators are able
33:26to date the beginnings of the crack this crack could have started more than six years ago it's an important
33:34development the fatigue crack on fan blade 13 likely began before the engine overhaul in 2012 when the blades were
33:46under close inspection the investigators concluded that the crack was present but had been missed at its last
33:54overhaul and during the subsequent uh visual inspections the pressure on investigators mounts
34:08there are more than 4 000 boeing 737s in service
34:14using the same type of fan blades
34:16the same inspection regime that missed the growing crack is also used throughout the aviation industry
34:32the catastrophe that struck flight 1380 could happen again
34:38once the fatigue crack has started or initiated you could liken it to a ticking time bomb
34:46the investigators need to know why engineers didn't find the crack on the fan blade that caused the
34:55tragedy on southwest 1380 the last major inspection that was done was with a dipenetrant check that was the
35:05approved and appropriate test at that time the ntsb discovers that industry regulators were slow to adopt
35:14new more powerful technologies
35:19it's unfortunate that technologies existed that time but they weren't used and
35:25it's arguable whether had they been used the crack would definitely have been picked up before failure
35:33ultrasonic probes allow inspectors to detect growing fatigue cracks far more effectively
35:39an ultrasonic inspection shoots a sound wave into the part and this sound wave can reflect off of any
35:46kind of defect that might be there so this can detect internal defects as well as surface defects
35:53if a fatigue crack in fan blade 13 had been detected by inspectors using this new technology
36:00the catastrophe on flight 1380 could have been prevented whether another inspection would have found the
36:06the crack it's possible but this wasn't approved at the time and wasn't applied but the missed crack
36:12doesn't explain why the shattered fan blade caused so much damage to the engine to have a fan blade fail
36:18is not an impossible condition it doesn't happen very often but it does happen and typically what will
36:26occur is the engine contains it and the airplane lands normally
36:30the accident on flight 1380 reveals a weakness in the boeing 737's turbofan engines when the fan blade
36:40departed it damaged the cowl latches there are three latches on the underside of the cowlings that secure
36:47it to the engine the latches are what maintenance needs access to work on the engine so these cowlings
36:54will actually open up investigators determined that when the 11 pound fan blade broke off
37:00it was propelled downward striking the underside of the latches one of the most vulnerable places of the
37:06engine the impact opened the cowl enough for the incoming air to rip the housing from the engine
37:14sending shrapnel everywhere
37:16one of the questions was why didn't we see this sort of failure during certification testing this
37:25engine was certified in 1997 the computer modeling available in those days never predicted that this
37:32sort of failure could happen investigators now understand what happened on southwest flight 1380
37:41the fan blade 13 had been slowly growing for more than six years
37:55when flight 1380 reaches cruising altitude the fan blade finally breaks
38:02it strikes a weak spot in the casing and starts a chain reaction that tears the engine apart
38:09sending a piece of the engine cowl into the window at row 14. it causes a rapid decompression in the cabin
38:23jennifer reardon sitting in seat 14a is sucked out the window
38:28it's okay you're gonna be okay when i first saw our passenger out the window it was a shock it's not
38:36anything that i ever in a million years thought i would see help me i said you know to myself it's time
38:45to go to work and so i positioned myself accordingly and i had another passenger in row 15 who was
38:52assisting me and the two of us were pulling with everything we had 50 feet years of training and
39:00experience help captain tammy joe schultz and first officer darren ellisor get their badly damaged
39:06plane safely on the ground this entire flight crew performed extremely well everyone did their job
39:13and did it well a lot of good uh aviation techniques a lot of training came into play
39:22i definitely had a lot of anxiety from the time that the engine exploded
39:28and it really didn't even stop once we got the airplane on the runway
39:36a high pressure emergency landing saves the plane
39:39but the accident takes jennifer reardon's life
39:56the ntsb's report recommends that boeing redesign engine cases so a detached fan blade can't cause a
40:03catastrophic accident the aviation industry expands the use of ultrasonic testing
40:11with the implementation of this new technology similar incidents are averted
40:20technicians found 23 fan blades that exhibited some form of potential cracking and they were removed from
40:27service the skilled airmanship of captain tammy joe schultz and first officer darren ellisor is recognized
40:34around the world we're not heroes no tammy joe and i were we were only doing our jobs everything that we
40:42were trained to do i do consider the passengers and the flight attendants heroes they put their own lives on
40:50the line that is being a hero right there the actions of the flight attendants are also honored
40:58that day in april it was our very last day we were going home so it was go home day as we call it
41:05in my mind that day was going to go very differently i did what i needed to do that day was was definitely
41:12not the day that we had expected it's okay you're gonna be okay as humans when things are at their worst
41:21we are at our best the flight attendants the passengers
41:26when it was really the darkest of times they rose to the occasion
41:33we did everything we could with what we had there's people around us that are willing to help
41:39and want to help you know we're all here for a reason and for some of us that is to serve
41:50so i was able to really learn about jennifer and learn who she is as a person
41:55and learn how wonderful she is in the community and the foundation that she has in her name the
42:02one thing that she wanted to do in this world was to spread kindness
42:05and even though she's no longer with us she's still doing that through other people
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