Southwest passengers receive checks after deadly accident

Southwest Airlines passengers who were on board a flight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport that made an emergency landing in Philadelphia have been reimbursed by the company.

CNN reports that some passengers on board Flight 1380 received a check for $5,000 on Friday after an engine failure caused an accident that fatally injured one passenger and caused the aircraft’s cabin to depressurize.

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Passenger Jennifer Riordan, an executive at Wells Fargo, died when she was partially sucked out of the plane during the flight after a window was broken by debris. Fellow passengers were able to pull her back, but she succumbed to injuries.

Kamau Siwatu, a passenger on the flight, told CNN that Southwest expressed “sincere apologies” in a letter that also included a $1,000 travel voucher.

“We value you as our customer and hope you will allow us another opportunity to restore your confidence in Southwest as the airline you can count on for your travel needs,” Siwatu’s letter reads. “In this spirit, we are sending you a check in the amount of $5,000 to cover any of your immediate financial needs.”

Federal airline inspectors are looking into ordering new inspections of the fan blades used by jet engines after initial analysis revealed it to be the component that failed 20 minutes after takeoff. The jet involved in Tuesday’s accident had been visually inspected just days beforehand.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Robert Sumwalt said Tuesday that the blown engine had “metal fatigue.”

“Our preliminary examination of this was that there’s evidence of metal fatigue where the blade separated,” he said at a press conference in Philadelphia.

A Democratic lawmaker has requested a congressional hearing over the accident, which comes as Congress prepares to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration.