Another Southwest Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing on Wednesday after a bird struck its engine, a day after a woman died on another of its planes when she was sucked out of the window.
The bird strike happened on board a flight from Nashville to Phoenix on Wednesday morning.
The pilot of that flight made an emergency landing in Nashville and no injuries were reported.
Southwest said the aircraft has been taken out of service for maintenance and local employees are working to get passengers on a new flight.
Another Southwest Airlines flight had to make an emergency landing on Wednesday after a bird strike. The plane returned to Nashville on Wednesday morning 25 minutes after taking off for Phoenix. Pictured, Southwest Airlines planes at Nashville airport on Sunday morning
The emergency occurred a day after a Southwest plane’s engine exploded during a flight and a businesswoman was sucked halfway out of a window broken by pieces of shrapnel.
The woman later died, and seven others were injured. In a statement, a spokesman for the airline said:
‘The captain in command declared an emergency and safely landed the flight.’
Jennifer Riordan, 43, died on Tuesday after being sucked out of the window on board Flight 1380 from New York to Dallas.
The second flight path is shown above. It took off from Nashville, Tennessee, at 5.13am local time and returned 24 minutes later
A harrowing photograph taken in the air shows the exposed, mangled engine after it exploded on Flight 1380 on Tuesday. The pilot flew like this for 12 minutes until she made her emergency landing
On Wednesday, Flight 1380 made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after one of the engines exploded and shattered a passenger window. The woman next to it was sucked out at 32,000ft and suffered fatal facial and head injuries
Jennifer Riordan, a mother-of-two from Albuquerque, was on a business trip when the plane’s left engine exploded sending shrapnel flying into a window next to her seat
A piece of shrapnel shattered the window next to her when one of the plane’s engine’s exploded.
Other passengers pulled her back in to the aircraft but she suffered ‘significant’ facial and head injuries and died in hospital.
A retired nurse and EMT who were on the plane performed CPR on her for 12 minutes until the pilot made an emergency landing at Philadelphia’s International Airport at 11.27am.
The National Transport Safety Board is now investigating what caused the engine to fail.
The engine exploded at around 11.15am and the pilot immediately began their descent.
No others on board the flight were seriously injured.