From my friend, Ralph Haven, an Alon owner.
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Here are the pictures of the aircraft on SWA 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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Glen
Glen Davis
917 297 1111
www.ishootpictures.com
www.ercoupepilot.com
