Passengers Sue Southwest Airlines Over Emergency Landing

A group of passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Dallas, Texas, is suing the airline over an emergency landing that followed a fatal engine explosion. Southwest flight 1380 landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 17 after an engine exploded about 20 minutes into the flight at an altitude of 32,500 feet, causing Jennifer Riordan to be nearly sucked out of the plane. She died after being pelted by metal fragments. Riordan’s family is not part of the lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan State Supreme Court by nine of her fellow passengers on Tuesday. The plaintiffs claim they “were confronted with their greatest fear, the overwhelming horror of being trapped in a plane about to crash.”