A Southwest Airlines flight returned safely to Denver International Airport on Sunday after the engine cover of a Boeing 737-800 fell off during takeoff and hit the wing, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Flight 3695 was headed to Houston, but returned to Denver Airport around 8:15 AM. after the crew reported that the engine cover fell off.
The plane, which had 135 passengers and five crew members, was towed back to the gate. The FAA said it would investigate.
In a statement, Southwest Airlines said its maintenance teams were examining the aircraft. Southwest said the passengers boarded another plane and arrived at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston about three hours behind schedule.
“We apologize for the inconvenience of the delay, but our highest priority is the absolute safety of our customers and employees,” the statement said.
A video taken from a window near the plane’s wing and posted on social media shows a blue cowling peeling off the engine and twisting in the air as the plane descended a runway before a large section of it eventually fell.
“Let’s go ahead and declare an emergency for Southwest 3695 and we would like an immediate return,” a crew member said, according to radio transmissions with an air traffic controller. “We have a piece of the engine cover hanging off.”
The incident came during a period of heightened scrutiny over other commercial air travel incidents, starting with the painful emergency on Jan. 5 on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in which a panel known as a door plug blew off a new Boeing 737 Max 9, which was delivered to the airline just months earlier.
No one died, but it sparked investigations into Boeing’s Max 9 and raised questions about quality control problems in its plane production.
Then came a series of eight incidents last month involving United Airlines aircraft over a two-week period.
Maintenance issues, loose tires and missing panels were among the problems plaguing six Boeing and two Airbus aircraft. One safety expert said such cases were typical and were being “falsely conflated with Boeing’s problems”.
