A Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago to Newark, N.J., was diverted to Cleveland on Wednesday because of a broken window.
“The aircraft has been taken out of service for maintenance review, and our local Cleveland employees are working diligently to accommodate the 76 customers on a new aircraft to Newark,” a spokeswoman confirmed to the Washington Examiner. The aircraft never lost cabin pressure, she noted, “as there are multiple layers of panes in each window. No emergency landing was requested and the flight landed uneventfully with no reported injuries.”
The incident follows a fatal mid-engine failure last month and comes amid warnings from the Texas-based company that bookings would be lower as a result of the safety issues.
A passenger on a Southwest flight last month from New York City to Dallas died in April after shrapnel from the engine pierced a window of the single-aisle aircraft. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that one of the engine’s 24 fan blades was missing, and the agency is reviewing whether metal fatigue played a role in the accident.
The Federal Aviation Administration previously ordered airlines to inspect fan blades on the CFM56-7B engines used by the Boeing 737. This week, it increased the monitoring requirements, ordering initial examinations after 20,000 flights and follow-ups after 3,000 flights.
