Death on Southwest flight 1st accidental domestic airline fatality since 2009

The Southwest Airlines plane that had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
(Image credit: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images)

One person died Tuesday after a Southwest Airlines plane had engine failure and was forced to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

The National Transportation Safety Board said this is the first accidental domestic airline fatality in nine years; in 2009, Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo, killing 49 people on board and one person on the ground. The Southwest plane was en route from New York City to Dallas with 144 passengers and five crew members when the engine failed midair. Passenger Matt Tranchin told ABC News he heard a "huge explosion and glass shattering three rows ahead of me," and passenger Cassie Adams said a woman was "sucked out" of a broken window.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.