Engine on Southwest Airlines plane showed signs of metal weakness: NTSB chief

2018-04-19 5

U.S. investigators looking into the Southwest Airlines accident that left one passenger dead are focusing their probe on the plane's left engine,... where a fan blade broke off and burst out of the casing.
According to the head of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday,... the engine showed signs of metal weakness at the point where the blade broke off.
This parallels a similar incident on a Southwest flight in 2016,... where a turbine blade snapped off,... forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.
Both incidents involved engines manufactured by the same company, CFM International.
Over six-thousand planes dotted around the world equipped with the same model.