A Southwest Airlines flight between Burbank and Sacramento suffered a bird strike, with passengers reporting fire on the left hand engine.
Bird Strike: Reports of Fire on Southwest Flight To Sacramento…
Southwest flight WN1707 departed Burbank at 0902 local time yesterday, and proceeded onwards to Sacramento as planned.
As per The Aviation Herald, as the aircraft was on final approach into Sacramento, it is understood that a bird was ingested into the left hand engine, which produced a bang and then smoke from the engine.
Despite this, WN1707 was able to land safely, without the need for an abortion of the approach, but the aircraft was subsequently grounded as a result.
WN1707 was operated by N770SA, one of Southwest’s Boeing 737-700 aircraft in the fleet.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N770SA is a 23.3 year old aircraft at the time of writing that was delivered to the carrier back in June 2000.
The airline has a fleet of 817 aircraft in total, consisting of the following:
- 404 Boeing 737-700s.
- 207 Boeing 737-800s.
- 206 Boeing 737 MAX 8s.
Of the 817 aircraft in the fleet, 28 of them are currently parked up, with 789 of them in active service at the time of publication.
At the time of writing also, N770SA is still grounded pending checks, maintenance and potential overhaul of the engine following the damage sustained by the bird strike.
Earlier this week, N773SA, another Boeing 737-700 in the Southwest fleet suffered a fuel leak on approach into Los Angeles. You can view that by clicking here.
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