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Southwest flight victim's death attributed to impact trauma

Jennifer Riordan died after an engine failure shot debris into a Southwest Airlines plane, breaking the window next to her seat and pulling her partially out of the plane.
Credit: NTSB
NTSB investigators on scene in Philadelphia examining damage to the engine of a Southwest Airlines plane that tore apart and sent shrapnel through a window during a flight from New York to Dallas on April 17, 2018.

Philadelphia's medical examiner says that a woman killed when she was partially blown out of a Southwest Airlines plane died of blunt impact trauma to her head, neck and torso.

Spokesman James Garrow of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health said Wednesday evening that Jennifer Riordan's death was ruled accidental.

Riordan was killed and seven others were injured after the twin-engine 737 blew an engine at 30,000 feet Tuesday and got hit by shrapnel.

Federal investigators are still trying to figure out how the window came out of the plane. National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt says that the woman was wearing a seatbelt and sitting next to the window.

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