Southwest plane window breaks mid-flight again, passengers 'crying hysterically'

The plane window that broke mid-flight on a Southwest passenger jet and pulled a woman partially out of the aircraft's cabin last month is still fresh in many airline passenger's minds today. With that said, it is understandable that when another flight's window broke mid-flight Wednesday, it caused a bit of a panic.

Southwest Airlines had another window shatter today on the heels of last month's horrendous incident that ended a woman's life. Last month, the Southwest flight in the headlines had a hole punched clean through the window when an engine broke apart at 30,000 feet, sending shrapnel into the plane's body and shattering the window.

Something hit the plane?

Today's incident has passengers reporting they heard something hit the plane, much like the last incident. But this time, the Broken Window did not depressurize the cabin, which would have created a suction pulling people and objects toward the sudden opening as it did in the previous incident.

According to Fox News, not all the layers of window panes in the window shattered during the incident today, so it did not actually leave an opening to the outside world. The pilots did not make an emergency landing, but they did, however, divert the plane to the nearest airport once that window broke.

Broken window photos

Passengers took pictures of the broken window and posted them online today to the various social media sites.

One of those tweets is seen below.

The Southwest flight today departed from Chicago and was headed to Newark Aiport in New Jersey, but the plane was diverted to Cleveland after the window was broken.

The passengers said they heard "popping noises" as the window broke.

Flight diverted

According to Fox, the plane was diverted to Cleveland about two hours after takeoff and the diversion was deemed "a maintenance review" of the plane. While reports indicate that just a pane in the window broke, the pictures appear to show one area of the window with no glass at all, suggests Fox News.

Once landing in Cleveland, the 76 passengers on board were told to take their belongings and get off the plane and board another plane waiting for them. The plane never lost cabin pressure, so oxygen masks never dropped from the ceiling.

What caused a plane window to break?

The aircraft was taken out of service and a spokesperson for the airlines said there were no other mechanical problems with the passenger jet. It is not known what caused the window to break, but the Washington Post is reporting that passengers heard something smash into the window, causing it to shatter.

The Washington Post also reports that some passengers were "crying hysterically" when the window shattered. While this incident was frightening to the passengers, no one was hurt.

That wasn't the case back in the middle of last month, when a woman died after she was partially sucked through a broken window at 30,000 feet. That incident injured several other passengers on that flight as well.

During the horrendous event last month, other passengers on that Southwest flight were able to pull the woman back into the plane. She later died from the severe injuries received in that incident.