2 Killed as Engine Parts Pierce Cabin of Delta Jet

Pieces of an engine ripped into the cabin of a Delta Air Lines jet as it sped down a runway loaded with holiday travelers Saturday, killing two people and forcing the pilot to abort the takeoff.

Delta Flight 1288 was headed to Atlanta carrying its capacity of 142 passengers and five crew members, said Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta.

The 8-year-old MD-88 jet was 1,500 feet down the runway when passengers reported seeing smoke from the left engine, Bergen said.

Delta spokesman Bill Berry said pieces of the engine pierced the fuselage after the engine caught fire, killing a man and a woman in the cabin. Their names were not immediately released.

“At this point we believe it was a major failure of the engine,” Berry said, adding that there was no indication of fire in the cabin.

Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for East Hartford, Conn.-based Pratt & Whitney, which manufactured the plane’s engines, said the company believes that a fan blade in the front of the left engine failed.

Broken pieces of the blade probably penetrated the fan case, and debris went flying, Sullivan said.

“We believe that is what happened. But we have not confirmed it because we haven’t examined the engine,” Sullivan said.

The FAA didn’t know the immediate cause of the plane trouble, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to the crash site.

Of Delta’s fleet of more than 500 planes, 120 are MD-88s. The plane’s engines, located on each side of the rear fuselage, are the Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219s.

In May, the NTSB recommended to the FAA that certain Pratt & Whitney jet engines be inspected for cracks. Sullivan said the JT8D-219 was not among those to be inspected.

The NTSB’s recommendation stemmed from an incident Jan. 30 at New York’s La Guardia International Airport in which an engine on a Delta Boeing 727 failed, throwing several parts through the engine covering. The crew halted takeoff, and passengers were evacuated without injury, the board said.

Thirty passengers from Saturday’s accident were evacuated on slides, and others left by stairs. At least five people were taken to two hospitals, said Kathy Pope, of the Escambia County Emergency Medical Services.

One was in serious condition with a fractured leg, another was in good condition and a third was being evaluated at Baptist Hospital, said Baptist Hospital spokeswoman Carol Trivett. Two children were taken to Sacred Heart Hospital. Their conditions were not immediately available.