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Unlike the heavy duty material used for the inlet cowl at the front end of a jet engine pod, which is designed to contain a fan blade breaking off, the fan cowl doors are made from relatively thin aluminum.

For an airline passenger looking out the window of a jet, it’s alarming to see the metal cover in the midsection of the engine pod flapping open, shredding like thin paper, then ripping off and sending debris backward to ricochet into the wing and fuselage.

As the San Diego-bound flight lifted off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the covers on both sides of the left engine pod — called a nacelle — came loose.

Kourousis said the reason the 737 has a better record is simply that the latch for its fan cowl doors is close to the edge of the underside of the engine pod and therefore more easy to see from the side.

The fix for the defect requires replacement of two carbon composite fairing panels that cover the area where the engine pod hangs from the strut that connects it to the wing.