Jet Engine Blows; Mother, Son Killed

PENSACOLA, Fla. - A mother and her 12-year-old son died and seven other passengers were injured yesterday when an engine on a Delta Air Lines MD-88 blew apart on the runway, sending shrapnel through the aircraft.

Killed were Anita and Nolan Saxton of Scottville, Mich., who were seated in row 37 in the back of the aircraft, Delta spokesman Bill Berry told reporters at a briefing in Atlanta last night.

Also on board were Nolan's brother, Derrick Saxton, 15, and his sister, Spencer Saxton, 9. Both were in good condition late yesterday at an area hospital..

They were among the 142 passengers and five crew members aboard the twin-engine aircraft when the plane skidded to a stop about 1,500 feet down the runway, a spokesman for the Pensacola Regional Airport said.

The unusual incident aboard Delta Flight 1288 occurred as the 8-year-old airplane was taxiing for takeoff to Atlanta at about 2:20 p.m. CDT.

Although witnesses reported hearing a loud sound, followed by flames in the engine, Delta officials declined to call it an explosion and described it as an engine "disintegration."

"There was a major failure of the engine that resulted in parts of the engine leaving the cowling, which normally will stop any parts, and penetrating the fuselage," Berry said.

Airline officials were investigating whether a bird or other outside object may have caused the engine fire.

Witnesses reported a banging noise from the left engine, flames that erupted from the engine, smoke in the cabin and shrapnel flying throughout the rear of the aircraft.

The plane used emergency chutes to evacuate about three dozen passengers, Berry said. After the small engine fire was quickly contained, the crew ushered the remaining passengers out using stairs.

"There was just a cloud of smoke that came down and you saw people go down and saw people panic," passenger John Madden said. "As the pilot hit the gas to accelerate, the engine blew . . . and shrapnel went flying through the aircraft."

Only one of the injured was listed in serious condition, a man with a broken leg, area hospital officials said.

The damaged engine had been overhauled late last year and was installed on the MD-88 in January. It had logged 1,528 hours of service since then, Berry said.

The MD-88 is one derivative of McDonnell Douglas's popular MD-80 series, a large and more modern version of the DC-9. It seats 146 people in Delta's interior configuration, with rows of three seats along the left side of the plane and rows of two along the right side.

The same type of Pratt & Whitney engine, known as the JT8D-219 series, is used by many Boeing 727s and 737s, and Berry described it as "a workhorse engine that has been around for many, many years."

In the MD-88, the engines are mounted to the sides of the fuselage at the rear of the passenger cabin where they block the view from the last couple of seat rows. An exploding engine could send shrapnel directly into passengers in the last rows.

Passengers forward of those rows would be partly protected from flying parts because the galley is just ahead of the last three rows of seats in Delta's configuration.

Engine failures in which parts break through the fuselage are rare. Such uncontained failures usually come about when rotating parts at the front of the engine break apart. Engine cowlings - or coverings - are designed to contain all but the most catastrophic engine breakups.

The Delta incident is similar to a June 8, 1995, engine explosion of a JT8D engine on a ValuJet DC-9 at Atlanta. Flying engine parts broke through the fuselage and seriously injured a flight attendant, and the plane was destroyed in the ensuing fire after passengers were evacuated.

The ValuJet explosion was traced to a flaw in a compressor disc, a large, rotating part that is situated so that it can be inspected only when the engine is taken apart. The ValuJet engine was among 23 purchased from the Turkish state airline. The FAA discovered that one of the engines had corrosion that was painted over by a Turkish repair facility. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all engines repaired by that facility be inspected.

The safety board will investigate the Delta crash. However, there is no indication that the Delta engine was among those repaired in Turkey.

Compiled from Reuters, Washington Post and Associated Press reports.