Southwest Airlines Cancels 40 Flights for Engine Inspections

Safety regulators issued emergency directives after the accident in Pennsylvania that killed a passenger

Southwest Airlines said it canceled about 40 flights on Sunday, or 1 percent of those scheduled.

The cancellations were the result of the company’s announcement on Tuesday that it would over the next 30 days begin inspecting other CFM56-7B engines

LONDON – Southwest Airlines Co. canceled a small number of fights Sunday, or 1 percent of those scheduled, to perform engine checks in the wake of an accident that killed one of its passengers in Pennsylvania.

Southwest, the nation’s fourth-largest carrier by traffic, said around 40 flights were scratched while the airline checks engines on some of its Boeing Co. 737 planes. The cancellations represented about 1% of its planned Sunday schedule, Southwest said.

The airline said the cancellations were the result of the company’s announcement on Tuesday that it would over the next 30 days begin inspecting other CFM56-7B engines, manufactured by CFM International, the engine involved in last week’s accident.

At the time, Southwest said those inspections would cause some impact on operations, but it has not said how many engines it planned to inspect.

On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration and European airline regulators ordered emergency inspections within 20 days of nearly 700 aircraft engines similar to the one involved in a fatal Southwest engine blowout earlier this week.

The engine explosion on Southwest Flight 1380 on Tuesday was caused by a fan blade that broke off, the FAA said. The blast shattered a window, killing a passenger, in the first U.S. passenger airline fatality since 2009.

Southwest has declined to answer questions about its CFM56-7B inspection program, including how many engines were inspected prior to the accident and if the engine that failed had been inspected.

A Southwest flight in August 2016 with a CFM56-7B engine made a safe emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, after a fan blade separated and debris ripped a hole above the left wing.

After that incident, the European agency gave airlines nine months to check engines. U.S. regulators were still were considering what to do after proposing some checks.