Mark Angelo, CEO, Yorkville Advisors

When an engine broke apart during a Southwest Airlines flight, shrapnel shattered a window, injuring a woman, who later died. In the process of discovering who is responsible for this fatal accident, Southwest is struggling to find adequate answers to questions from investigators and the consumer public. 

The manufacturer of the engine that failed says they recommended the airline require ultrasonic inspections of the blades months ago. Southwest balked. Now, nearly a year after the company received initial warnings, a blade did fail, a woman is dead, and Southwest is left answering many difficult and uncomfortable questions. 

While the questions are at the forefront of the PR issue for Southwest, the backdrop of the questions is an ongoing discussion about how and why Southwest opposed inspections that may have found the issue and prevented the emergency. Now, US regulators are once again considering making such inspections mandatory, a proposal Southwest opposed last year. 

Those exchanges are concerning, but, at the moment, the public is riveted to the firsthand accounts of the horror in the passenger cabin of the Boeing 737. 

After the engine “failed,” debris slammed into the side of the plain, breaking a window and pulling a woman partially through the broken window. Other passengers were able to get her back in the plane, but she later died of her injuries. 

One passenger involved in helping the woman was Andrew Needum, a Texas firefighter, who spoke to the Associated Press about his efforts to help the woman. “I feel for her family. I feel for her two kids, her husband, the community that they lived in… I can’t imagine what they’re going through.” 

Needum and Tim McGinty, another passenger, worked to pull the woman, Jennifer Riordan, back into the aircraft, then Peggy Phillips, a nurse administered CPR until the plane was able to land. 

These and other stories have the public’s attention at the moment, and many are expressing concerns about other passenger jets currently in use. These worries increased after investigators revealed the blade that broke off showed signs of metal fatigue. Metal fatigue was also blamed after another Southwest plane was damaged in-flight, but later able to land safely. 

Concerns about the safety and proper maintenance of Southwest’s fleet are not going to be answered by revelations about the airline pushing back against further safety checks, especially when they came from the engine manufacturer, and not a government agency. Once that aspect of the story grabs hold, Southwest will have a lot more questions to answer.