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Southwest's heavy heart: How the LUV airline is responding to the worst accident in its history

After 47 years, a tragedy unlike any other in its history struck Southwest Airlines this week.

For every potential crisis, Southwest Airlines has a plan, carefully crafted by a specialized group of employees and regularly drilled by team members to hone the instincts that will kick in at a moment’s notice, even as they hope that moment never comes.

After 47 years of preparation, a tragedy unlike any other in its history struck Southwest Airlines this week, when a passenger onboard a Dallas-bound flight was killed Tuesday morning after a failed engine sent debris into the wing and fuselage.

In an instant, an airline that prides itself on taking care of its people above all else was faced with its first onboard fatality and the sobering task of caring for a grieving family and the 148 other people aboard the flight.

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“This is a very sad day,” Southwest’s CEO Gary Kelly said Tuesday evening at the carrier’s Love Field headquarters.

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Hours earlier, as the flight from New York to Dallas approached cruising altitude shortly after 11 a.m., a fan blade broke off from the engine. The ensuing damage blew out the window on Row 14, and the passenger sitting next to it, 43-year-old New Mexico bank executive and mother of two Jennifer Riordan, suffered fatal injuries.

In this 2017 photo, Jennifer Riordan, of Albuquerque, N.M., poses for a photo. Family,...
In this 2017 photo, Jennifer Riordan, of Albuquerque, N.M., poses for a photo. Family, friends and community leaders are mourning the death of Riordan, a bank executive on a Southwest Airlines jet with an engine that failed as she was flying home from a business trip to New York. (Marla Brose/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)

A harrowing 22 minutes after the engine failure, the plane was back on the ground after an emergency landing in Philadelphia, with only a handful of minor injuries reported. The care started almost immediately, as the plane’s pilot Capt. Tammie Jo Shults walked the aisle to check on her passengers.

'Everybody feels it'

Southwest’s emergency response plan kicked into action as employees around the country were scrambled in order to respond to the accident.

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Tuesday night, the company sped up plans to inspect thousands of fan blades on other engines in its fleet, a time-intensive effort to ensure the rest of the fleet is safe.

The company also arranged a special flight to Dallas Tuesday night available only to Flight 1380 passengers that was staffed with a veteran crew who provided regular updates throughout the trip.

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The following days were a blur of meetings, long hours and coordinating responses to passengers, the public and the media.

The company’s top priority, Kelly said, has been taking care of those who were on the flight, a challenge the carrier has seemingly risen to meet, based on praise from many of those onboard.

“Friendly, understanding, concerned," was how Dallas community organizer Matt Tranchin, who was returning from business a trip to New York, described the company’s response.

In the days since, Southwest employees have been in regular contact by phone and email with the passengers. On Wednesday, the company provided  $5,000 to each to help cover immediate expenses in an email signed by Kelly that began, “On behalf of the entire Southwest Airlines family, please accept our sincerest apologies.”

Closer to home, current and former Southwest employees describe a sense of sadness and grief that has permeated their tight-knit community in the days since the accident. Messages of support began flying between friends and colleagues through text messages and Facebook groups, as they checked in on one another and tried to process the unimaginable.

The company has cultivated a loyal and family-like culture since its earliest days, with the bonds forged during good times helping sustain employees through one of Southwest’s most trying times.

“It was pride in the crew and deep sorrow over the loss of this passenger. There’s just a sense of, this is heartbreaking, but we will get through this,” said Cynthia Young, an assistant vice president at UT Southwestern Medical Center who worked at Southwest for over a decade, most recently as senior director of labor and employee relations communication. “It’s a different culture. When there’s an issue, everybody feels it.”

'Nothing ever prepares you'

No two airline accidents are ever the same, but their toll inevitably weighs heavily on those involved.

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“I’ve seen a lot of airline crashes over 40 years. No matter which airline, the people take it very personally,” said Darryl Jenkins, executive director of the American Aviation Institute. “Nothing ever prepares you for the horror of a death on an airplane.”

The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation is still in its early phases, with the engine in Philadelphia processed to ship off-site for further examination Friday afternoon. The accident was the first to result in a passenger death onboard a U.S. airline in more than nine years.

Already, attention has focused on the broken fan blade, the second time in less than two years that has happened on a Southwest plane equipped with a CFM56-7B engine. The previous failure took place on an Aug. 27, 2016 flight from New Orleans to Orlando, and no passengers were injured as the plane made an emergency landing in Pensacola, Fla.

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The seeming similarity between the two incidents has prompted questions and concerns about whether regulators and airlines should have responded faster with ultrasonic inspections first recommended by the engine’s manufacturer, CFM International, in March of last year.

On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency directive calling for older CFM56-7B engines to be inspected within 20 days. CFM International has recommended 2,500 more engines, each with 24 fan blades, in fleets across the world be inspected by August.

The true cause of Tuesday’s engine failure, and whether it should have been prevented, likely won’t be known for a year or more. The NTSB is expected to issue its preliminary findings within a few weeks or months, but its final report could take 12 to 24 months.

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The agency still hasn’t issued its final findings from the 2016 incident, a process that could be extended by this week’s events.

“Engine failures like this should not occur,” NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said in a Wednesday briefing. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

'They really took care of us'

The only other fatal accident in Southwest’s history happened in 2005, when a plane skidded off the runway in snowy weather and into traffic, striking several cars and killing a 6-year-old boy in one of them.

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Ed Stewart, a former communications director at the airline, was part of the response team to that accident. He said the hours and days immediately following are trying, despite all the training employees go through beforehand.

“You don’t really know what you’re getting into. You have to really wrap your mind around all the things that are involved. What it takes not just emotionally but physically. It can be pretty draining,” Stewart said.

Jenkins, the aviation consultant, said the month following an accident is pressure-filled for those evaluating it and incorporating any changes to prevent a repeat of the problem.

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“These calls go well into the night. I’ve been on calls until 3 or 4 a.m. There’s an enormous amount of manpower that goes into this,” he said.

Jackie Freiberg, who wrote a dissertation and later a book on Southwest, said a company’s culture defines how it responds in the face of a crisis, something the carrier has excelled at in the past.

“This is a company that will embrace the tragedy and do everything in their power to love on these people, to help support the healing and renewed wellness of these people. And not just the people that were on that flight,” said Freiberg, who works as a speaker and consultant on company culture with her husband Kevin, who co-authored their book on Southwest.

Even as Tuesday’s accident was unfolding, the company’s nearly 60,000 employees have remained focused on operating the carrier’s roughly 4,000 daily flights.

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For now, the company has stripped out the traditional red, blue and yellow from its heart logo in favor of a gray icon to mark the somber time.

Longer term, the airline is likely to continue its ascent that has seen it transform from a tiny Texas carrier serving three cities to the nation’s largest carrier of domestic traffic.

“Southwest has been intentional and purposeful. When we hire for skill, we know our employees will take great care of our customers,” Freiberg said. “They've created a culture that’s been a magnet for loyal, faithful passenger advocates.”

Tommy Needum, father, (from left) Julie Needum mother, Andrew Needum and his wife Stephanie...
Tommy Needum, father, (from left) Julie Needum mother, Andrew Needum and his wife Stephanie Needum talk about their experience on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 to the media at Celina City Fire Department on April 19, 2018. (Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

Indeed, just days after experiencing the turmoil aboard Flight 1380 where he helped Riordan in the last minutes of her life while his wife, parents and two children sat rows away, passenger Andrew Needum said his next flight would be with Southwest.

“Southwest is a great company and they took really good care of us,” Needum, a Celina firefighter, said Thursday. “There’s no question in my mind as to who I’ll be flying with again. They really took care of us."

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Staff Writer Julieta Chiquillo contributed to this report