Southwest passengers receive checks after deadly accident

[mystery-ak]

Southwest passengers receive checks after deadly accident
By John Bowden - 04/20/18 09:47 AM EDT

Southwest Airlines passengers who were on board a flight from New York's LaGuardia Airport that made an emergency landing in Philadelphia have been reimbursed by the company.

CNN reports that some passengers on board Flight 1380 received a check for $5,000 on Friday after an engine failure caused an accident that fatally injured one passenger and caused the aircraft's cabin to depressurize.

Passenger Jennifer Riordan, an executive at Wells Fargo, died when she was partially sucked out of the plane during the flight after a window was broken by debris. Fellow passengers were able to pull her back, but she succumbed to injuries.

Kamau Siwatu, a passenger on the flight, told CNN that Southwest expressed "sincere apologies" in a letter that also included a $1,000 travel voucher.

more
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/384114-southwest-passengers-receive-checks-after-deadly-accident

[thackney]

I wonder if cashing the check is an agreement not to file suit.

[Concerned]

I wonder if cashing the check is an agreement not to file suit.

I had the same question, but it looks like there were no strings attached (at least in the letter sent to passengers).

[Frank Cannon]

Jennifer Riordan's estate got the same check minus the $1K travel voucher because Southwest said she didn't really need it.

[thackney]

Jennifer Riordan's estate got the same check minus the $1K travel voucher because Southwest said she didn't really need it.

They may have some concerns of liability....

How Southwest pilot Tammie Jo Shults stayed calm in the cockpit
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-southwest-pilot-tammie-jo-shults-stayed-calm-in-the-cockpit

...hauntingly parallel incident that happened, same airline, same type of aircraft, same type of engine, in August of 2016.

The only difference is, nobody got hurt. The aircraft got on the ground safely, but exactly the same thing happened, with metal fatigue as the cause, and that fan blade being spit out like a hot, fast piece of shrapnel.

Subsequent to that, the manufacturer of the engine, CFM, which is a joint venture between GE and the French jet engine maker Safran, sent out a service bulletin to the airlines who had these engines and said, hey, you probably should do some ultrasound testing of these fan blades to make sure there are no cracks, because they’re not necessarily visible.

Southwest was among the airlines who resisted that call and said they just needed more time to do it and had not done those inspections.

So, the truth is, if the FAA, the NTSB had acted quicker and with more urgency after that first event in August 2016, this event might not have happened....