Southwest has been under intense scrutiny in the days since an engine on one of its Boeing 737 jets blew apart during a flight last Tuesday, killing one of 149 people aboard and raising concerns about the safety of similar engines. Photo by Reuters/Mark Makela

A lawsuit against Southwest Airlines Co has been filed by a passenger who was flying on last week’s flight 1380, in which an engine exploded and one person was killed. Southwest has sent $5,000 checks to passengers of the April 17 flight and canceled dozens of other flights in an effort to voluntarily ramp up engine inspections. The airline, which carries more passengers within the U.S. than any other airline, had inspected about 17,000 of the more than 35,000 fan blades on its engines before last week's accident, Van de Ven said. The suit claims that Southwest and the engine makers had “placed profits and business” over passenger safety and continued to operate the engine “even when there was confirmation that an unsafe condition existed.”

A Southwest flight in August 2016 with the same type of CFM56-7B engine made an emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, after a fan blade separated and debris ripped a hole above the left wing.
Jet engine manufacturer CFM International calls for heightened checks of its CFM56-7B after a Boeing 737 passenger died in an accident this month. The CFM56-7B is one of the most commonly used engines worldwide.