The plane, going from New York to Dallas, made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after an engine exploded, sending shrapnel into the body of the aircraft.
One person was killed on a Southwest Airlines flight from New York to Dallas when an engine exploded in midair on Tuesday, sending shrapnel and debris careering into the body of the aircraft, officials said.
The plane, Flight 1380, made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport at about 11 a.m. Firefighters soon found a fuel leak and a small fire in one of the engines, the Philadelphia Fire Department said.
Images of the plane on television showed a mangled engine, shards of twisted metal erupting from it in all directions. A window at the back of the cabin appeared to have been shattered by shrapnel from the exploding engine.
“At this point the N. T. S. B. is classifying this as an engine failure,” Robert L. Sumwalt, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference. He said the exact nature of the failure was unclear, but that “we do know that parts came off the engine.”
Mr. Sumwalt told reporters that one person had died, but the person’s name was not immediately released. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to Philadelphia to investigate the episode.
Kathy Matheson, a spokeswoman for the fire department, said seven people were treated on the scene for minor injuries.
The flight, which was on its way from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Dallas Love Field, was a Boeing 737 with 143 passengers and five Southwest employees on board, the airline said.
