Southwest Airlines flight 3472 made an emergency landing after one of its engines exploded mid-flight Saturday morning.
The flight departed from Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at 9:10 a.m. CST, and was en route to Orlando International Airport when its engines suffered a “catastrophic failure.” The pilot diverted the plane to Pensacola International Airport in Florida’s panhandle, where it landed safely at 9:42 a.m. CST, according to FlightAware.
“It was just a big explosion. There was some smoke and then nothing,” passenger Tami Richards told Oklahoma City’s KOCO 5. Richards, her husband and three young children were en route to Disney World, when the terrifying experience interrupted their vacation. “I saw parts flapping in the wind because it was right outside my window,” Richards to KOCO 5. She described the scene, saying that the plane started to shake and some people were screaming and crying.
Harrowing images show just how serious the malfunction was:
Southwest Airline’s pilots union also tweeted about the incident, and some of the passengers and family members thanked the pilot for saving their lives:
No one was injured. The 99 passengers were booked on alternative flights, and the five crew members were credited with remaining calm while the pilot landed the plane safely.
A Southwest Airlines spokesman told the media that the National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and GE have been contacted by the airline.
Southwest Airlines has been in the news for other incidents over the past five years, including a nose gear failure during landing in 2013 and an incident in 2011, when the side of a Southwest plane ruptured in mid-flight, causing passengers to faint and pass out.
The engine explosion brings additional bad press to an airline that suffered a massive computer glitch that delayed and cancelled thousands of flights earlier this summer, and the airline is in the middle of an increasingly-nasty and public labor dispute with its employees.
Send Tips to ted@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.