Southwest pilots used hand signals to communicate after deadly explosion
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The pilots of the Southwest Airlines jet that suffered a midair engine explosion had to use hand signals to communicate because of the deafening roar, they said in a new interview.
The explosion, which happened near Philadelphia on a Dallas-bound flight from LaGuardia Airport, led to part of the engine shattering a window and a passenger being partially sucked out of the plane. Jennifer Riordan, 43, a Wells Fargo banking executive from New Mexico, later died.
Co-pilot Darren Ellisor recalled a chaotic scene where everything suddenly went wrong.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“We were passing through about 32,000 feet when we heard a large bang and a rapid decompression,” Ellisor says in the ABC “20/20” clip. “The aircraft yawed and banked to the left a little over 40 degrees and we had a very severe vibration from the number one engine. There was shaking, everything. And that all kinda happened all at once.”