6 Things the Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 Emergency Tells Us about Aviation Today

On Tuesday, Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 from New York to Dallas suffered a catastrophic engine failure that killed a passenger, injured at least seven more, and caused an emergency landing in Philadelphia. The terrifying incident has filled our feeds for the last 24 hours and prompted more than few questions about the safety of air travel. But as frightening as the deadly incident may be, this sort of mid-flight emergency is extraordinarily rare and illustrates some interesting facts about the state of aviation.

Airlines are incredibly safe…

Unbelievably, this was the first fatality aboard a U.S. airline since 2009, when 50 people were killed in a Colgan Air crash, a stretch of nearly ten years when domestic carriers flew billions of passengers safely. (An accident in 2013 in San Francisco killed three passengers, but it involved Asiana, a South Korean airline.) Last year was, in fact, the safest year ever for commercial air travel globally. By contrast, more than 40,000 people were killed in automobile accidents in the United States in both 2016 and 2017. Worth adding: Airlines fly trillions more miles annually than are driven in the United States.

As is Southwest in particular.

Southwest Airlines, which was founded in 1971, is the biggest domestic airline by passenger numbers, carrying about one in four U.S. fliers. Its safety record is almost impossible to believe: The passenger death Tuesday was the first ever in company history as a result of an accident. (One person on the ground was killed in 2005, when a Southwest jet went off a runway at Chicago Midway; in an incident in 2000, one passenger died as a result of injuries sustained after he stormed the cockpit.) Last year, Southwest flew more than 130 million people to 100 different destinations aboard a fleet of more than 700 Boeing jets. It operates 512 Boeing 737-700s, the type of plane in Tuesday’s incident, as well as other variants of the 737, which is one of the world’s most common and most reliable aircraft. Much of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the incident will focus on why such a workhorse jet (and more specifically, its CFM56-7B engine) failed so catastrophically. Southwest has already announced that it will "[accelerate] its existing engine inspection program relating to the CFM56 engine family," looking specifically at engine fan blades. Other airlines are also examining closely their CFM engines, Reuters reports.

Pilots are amazing…

Passengers aboard Flight 1380 have credited Pilot Tammie Jo Shults with saving their lives. Her cool and collected demeanor while talking with air traffic controllers, as heard in these audio recordings of conversations, is simply remarkable, given that she was suddenly flying a jet crippled by an engine failure and handling an unknown number of injuries. Her analytic approach in the face of the crisis is also—astonishingly—common in aviation emergencies. After landing in Philadelphia, Shults went into the cabin to check on passengers in person. It does not seem a stretch to call her a hero.

But there aren’t enough pilots who happen to be women.

But in one way, Shults is certainly an outlier: Less than five percent of pilots in the U.S. identify as female, and many media reports are describing her as a “female pilot.” (Curious, since we don’t recall hearing Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger described as a “male pilot” when he ditched US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River.) But Shults’s incredible backstory includes encountering sexism in the military. “Shults enlisted in the Navy and was met with ‘a lot of resistance’ because of her gender,” according to a report in the Kansas City Star. In the Navy, she became the first woman to fly an F/18 fighter jet, the paper reports.

The gender gap in aviation is a real and persistent problem in the United States, as Condé Nast Traveler’s Katherine LaGrave has reported: “In 2017, American Airlines counted 626 female pilots among its 13,762; Delta’s ratio is 650 to 14,349; and United’s is 934 to 12,651, according to numbers provided to the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), the world’s largest pilot union. Minorities account for an even smaller percentage of the whole pie: today, there are fewer than 100 African-American female commercial pilots, according to the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (OBAP).”

Flight crews really are there for your safety…

Shults has rightly garnered praise, but there were four other crew members aboard Flight 1380. Passengers said the entire team—Shults, the other pilot, and three flight attendants—were calm and professional throughout the terrifying incident. One passenger addressed Shults and the whole crew in a Facebook post: "Tammie Jo Schults, the pilot, came back to speak to each of us personally. This is a true American hero. A huge thank you for her knowledge, guidance, and bravery in a traumatic situation. God bless her and all the crew," wrote Diana McBride Self, who posted a photo taken aboard the plane.

And it’s important to listen to the safety briefing.

The sometimes-snoozy pre-flight ritual has become such a cliché that airlines around the world have tried—with some success—to spice it up, even tapping celebrity stars and dance troupes to create videos that passengers will actually watch. There’s a reason: Paying attention before take-off can prepare you in the event of an emergency. After photos surfaced online of passengers aboard Flight 1380 not properly wearing their oxygen masks, many commenters noted that proper mask use is indeed one of the things covered in the briefing. No doubt about it: paying attention when flight crews review emergency procedures could save your life.