The incident occurred in Cleveland on Wednesday after a window broke in flight, CNN reported. This new event occurs two weeks after another plane of the same airline left a passenger dead after a similar landing.
A Southwest Airlines flight made an unexpected landing in Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday after a window broke in flight, CNN reported, citing information given by a passenger on the plane.
The incident occurred on flight 957, with service scheduled from Chicago’s Midway International Airport to the Newark Liberty International Airport.
“The crew of Southwest 957 made the decision to divert the plane to the Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport for the maintenance review of one of the multiple layers of a window panel.The flight landed without incident in Cleveland,” the airline told Univision. News.
@SouthwestAir has a serious problem with their fleet. My moms plane just had to divert and land in #Cleveland cuz of another window crack. pic.twitter.com/hm5edpgB1M
— Ryan Champion (@rholley28) May 2, 2018
The airline reported that the aircraft was “withdrawn from service for maintenance review” and that local Cleveland employees are “working diligently” to relocate 76 people on that plane on another flight to Newark.
“The aircraft maintained the pressurization since there are multiple layers of panels in each window (…) the flight landed without incident without reported injuries,” the airline told Univision Noticias.
The landing, according to Southwest, was uneventful.
This incident occurs just two weeks after a flight of the same airline that landed in Philadelphia, a passenger died after being partially sucked out of the aircraft through a broken window.
That flight, the 1380 that went from New York to Dallas, had a fault in mid-flight in a blade of the engine that, when leaving goodbye, caused an explosion. Engine parts flew and broke a window causing the aircraft to depressurize and passenger Jennifer Riordan to die after being sucked out of the plane momentarily because other passengers held her and reentered the cabin.
The incident lasted just over 20 minutes and until the emergency landing in Philadelphia. The causes of that accident are still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) although one of the theories that up to now have more force is that of the ‘metal fatigue’ of the engine .
Melissa Marner is a seasoned journalist with nearly 12 years under her belt. While studying journalism at Boston, Melissa found a passion for finding local stories. As a contributor to Cleveland Post Gazette, Melissa mostly covers human interest pieces.
