If people sometimes wonder how they might die, they rarely imagine that they could be sucked out of an airplane, as that scenario seems like something from a horror movie.

But what happens on the silver screen made it into real life after an engine of a Southwest Airlines plane in Philadelphia broke up in flight over 32,000 feet in the air. The debris shattered a window and the rapid decompression nearly sucked out a passenger. Other passengers pulled the victim back in but the 43-year-old bank executive and mother of two died from her injuries after being struck by shrapnel from the shredded engine.

An initial investigation found evidence of metal fatigue where a fan blade had broken off. Investigators point to a hidden interior crack on the fan blade as the culprit. The engine in question, CFM56-7B, is in use on more than 8,000 Boeing 737 planes worldwide. The task of checking thousands of these engines for cracks not detectable from the outside will be daunting.

The day after this shocking episode, other domestic airlines that use planes fitted with the CFM56-7B engine said they had begun inspecting some of their aircraft. It is all too common that immediately following a crash or near miss, authorities start to check planes with more vigor, especially the parts that caused the mishap. It is unfortunate but there is a clear pattern of airline executives acting only when catastrophe strikes.

One other takeaway from this nightmare in the sky was that the pilot who calmly landed the plane quickly and safely with one engine missing was a woman. The passengers and the public were quick to call Tammie Jo Shults, one of the US navy’s first female fighter pilots, a hero. Shults was said to have shown nerves of steel; proof, yet again, that high-risk jobs can be taken by both men and women. There is no difference in their performance.

Another point the experience highlighted is the power of instant communication. Thirty minutes into the flight, with oxygen masks dangling down and over their mouths, passengers screamed and braced for impact. It was a potential catastrophe that was being streamed and tweeted in real time. One passenger paid $8 for WiFi to Facebook Live for what he thought were his “final moments on earth”.

Those 22 harrowing minutes of chaos aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 carrying 149 people could become the stuff of a Hollywood movie, much like the box-office hit “The Miracle on the Hudson” which starred Tom Hanks who portrayed Sully Sullenberger, the cool-headed pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1589 on the Hudson River in 2009 after a flock of birds damaged both engines, forcing Sullenberger to land without power.

Tuesday’s incident could prevent people with a fear of flying from buying a plane ticket for some time. But the fact that this was the only passenger to have ever died on Southwest flights since the pioneering low-cost carrier was founded in 1967 and when the airline carries over 120 million passengers a year, shows that what occurred is the rare exception. Since it is the first passenger fatality on an American airline since 2009, despite this harrowing experience, flying remains extraordinarily safe. Few people come to physical harm these days due to engine problems. Flight delays from faulty engines happen all the time. Death from engine failure is not the rule.

But the fact that Southwest Airlines said there were no problems with the plane or its engine when both were inspected on Sunday, just two days before the incident, will do nothing to soothe the fear of flying.