FlyChicaga
Vintage Restoration
This is an amazing story. I'm not sure if this was a jumpseating flight attendant or pilot, or just a non-rev employee. It appears to have been a rotor burst. Looks like it is a -300 or -500 model B737. WOW! Kudos to the crew...
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SWA Flight 438 Diversion to DAL
Here are the pictures of the aircraft on Flight #438 from Dallas to Little Rock on Saturday November 17th. Incident occurred about 25 minutes into the flight. It was the worst experience I have ever encountered in my 9 year career of flying. It was terrifying. The aircraft was at cruising altitude somewhere above or around 30,000 feet. In an instant the aircraft had this horrible loud rumbling sound and was shaking and vibrating. (I was up passing out peanuts for the crew and had just finished, I was in the back of the aircraft by the jump-seat when this occurred.) The flight attendant's secured themselves in their jump-seat and I headed to the front of the aircraft to secure myself next to the 'A' fight attendant. We had 3 non-rev pilots on board sitting in the back that witnessed the right engine catch fire. One of them went to the back and notified the Captain, at that time the oxygen masks dropped above the flight attendant jump-seat. The plane was still making the same loud noises and motions as I explained above. Then the jump-seat fell apart, because of the vibration and shaking. It was tremendous! I told the 'A' flight attendant to grab the inter-phone (this is a device we use to communicate with the pilots and crew) so we could see if the pilot in the back of the aircraft was communicating with the captain. We knew the Captain and First Officer could not communicate with us at that time and did not want to disturb them. I made an announcement to the passengers and told them to remain calm, please remain seated, and the Captain was aware of our situation. The non-rev pilot proceeded to the front and told us he believed we were loosing pressurization. The oxygen masked did not drop in the cabin but only above the jump-seat in the back. He said he believed it was some sort of malfunction. At that time he called the Captain. Keep in mind that the aircraft was still experiencing my description above. It did not stop until we got closer to landing. The Captain wanted him to enter the cockpit and assist on landing. We did not open any oxygen masks for the passengers because the Captain told us we would not loose pressurization as long as the left engine was running. (Thank God!) I was relieved that their were 3 of them in there for landing! We secured the cabin for landing. The Captain finally had a chance to notify the passengers of what he thought we were experiencing, and told us we were going back to Dallas. There were 135 passengers on board and a total of 9 crew members (5 working crew and 4 non-rev crew). As we were approaching the airport the noise and vibration stopped. The back of the plane experienced a sort of swaying or waving motion, normal I assume, with only one engine working. We touched down and I have to say that was the best, by far.... landing we could possibly have. I expected the worst, as everyone else probably did as well. The pictures below will explain the loud noise and vibration we experienced. You can clearly see the size of the hole in the side of the engine. There was hardly anything left of the engine blades, it is hard to tell in the pictures. The inside of the engine was completely black from the fire. (Our captain shut the engine down immediately so it could not receive fuel) The engine was leaking heavily and the back of the fuselage had 3 huge dents in it from the panel that came off of the engine. We were so blessed that none of the blade particles or debris entered the cabin! There were 2 Fire trucks cop cars and I couldn't tell you how many mechanics and employees standing there in awe of this aircraft. They couldn't believe we made it! This very incident is proof of how awesome our pilots are at Southwest Airlines. I am honored to have had that crew.
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SWA Flight 438 Diversion to DAL
Here are the pictures of the aircraft on Flight #438 from Dallas to Little Rock on Saturday November 17th. Incident occurred about 25 minutes into the flight. It was the worst experience I have ever encountered in my 9 year career of flying. It was terrifying. The aircraft was at cruising altitude somewhere above or around 30,000 feet. In an instant the aircraft had this horrible loud rumbling sound and was shaking and vibrating. (I was up passing out peanuts for the crew and had just finished, I was in the back of the aircraft by the jump-seat when this occurred.) The flight attendant's secured themselves in their jump-seat and I headed to the front of the aircraft to secure myself next to the 'A' fight attendant. We had 3 non-rev pilots on board sitting in the back that witnessed the right engine catch fire. One of them went to the back and notified the Captain, at that time the oxygen masks dropped above the flight attendant jump-seat. The plane was still making the same loud noises and motions as I explained above. Then the jump-seat fell apart, because of the vibration and shaking. It was tremendous! I told the 'A' flight attendant to grab the inter-phone (this is a device we use to communicate with the pilots and crew) so we could see if the pilot in the back of the aircraft was communicating with the captain. We knew the Captain and First Officer could not communicate with us at that time and did not want to disturb them. I made an announcement to the passengers and told them to remain calm, please remain seated, and the Captain was aware of our situation. The non-rev pilot proceeded to the front and told us he believed we were loosing pressurization. The oxygen masked did not drop in the cabin but only above the jump-seat in the back. He said he believed it was some sort of malfunction. At that time he called the Captain. Keep in mind that the aircraft was still experiencing my description above. It did not stop until we got closer to landing. The Captain wanted him to enter the cockpit and assist on landing. We did not open any oxygen masks for the passengers because the Captain told us we would not loose pressurization as long as the left engine was running. (Thank God!) I was relieved that their were 3 of them in there for landing! We secured the cabin for landing. The Captain finally had a chance to notify the passengers of what he thought we were experiencing, and told us we were going back to Dallas. There were 135 passengers on board and a total of 9 crew members (5 working crew and 4 non-rev crew). As we were approaching the airport the noise and vibration stopped. The back of the plane experienced a sort of swaying or waving motion, normal I assume, with only one engine working. We touched down and I have to say that was the best, by far.... landing we could possibly have. I expected the worst, as everyone else probably did as well. The pictures below will explain the loud noise and vibration we experienced. You can clearly see the size of the hole in the side of the engine. There was hardly anything left of the engine blades, it is hard to tell in the pictures. The inside of the engine was completely black from the fire. (Our captain shut the engine down immediately so it could not receive fuel) The engine was leaking heavily and the back of the fuselage had 3 huge dents in it from the panel that came off of the engine. We were so blessed that none of the blade particles or debris entered the cabin! There were 2 Fire trucks cop cars and I couldn't tell you how many mechanics and employees standing there in awe of this aircraft. They couldn't believe we made it! This very incident is proof of how awesome our pilots are at Southwest Airlines. I am honored to have had that crew.
