An FAA preliminary incident report for 17 November reads as follows: SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT 438, A BOEING 737, ON DEPARTURE EXPERIENCED A
VIBRATION IN THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE, ENGINE SUSTAINED UNKNOWN DAMAGE,
AIRCRAFT RETURNED AND LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT, DALLAS, TX
Suffice it to say that the damage in question is now well and truly 'known'.
A major reason why security fails is when people are instructed to implement procedures that nobody believes matter. Pretty soon after the same people start to doubt that even the bits they thought mattered do in fact matter. And then nobody pays much attention to anything until something bad happens.
I suspect Easyjet is doing the world a favour by making it pretty clear that they don't think the "have you packed this yourself, "has it been out of your sight" malarkey actually means a damn.
The ATA is running a year-end poll asking what subscribers to its free daily newsletter think is the most important safety issue facing the industry. Quite right too, but it's a peculiar list of options that it offers. I think you can only see it on the newsletter - you can subscribe here - but this is how it runs:
Poll: What is the single most important safety issue to be addressed?
Frequency of runway incursions.
FAA oversight of foreign repair stations.
Aging aircraft.
Lack of a modern air-traffic control system.
If you're operating one of the 52 Boeing 707s still on the US register that the FAA has found then you need to do some work. This is to stop the thing blowing up in mid-air (or on the ground for that matter), which after 30 or 40 years would be a sad way for any of these to end their lives. The FAA reckons there are about 185 of the beasts around the world by the way.
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