There is no reason to believe Boeing or the FAA are at fault here. The plane performed as designed and was able to safely return to the airport with no injuries. Boeing's design and construction did what it was supposed to do, FAA procedures were followed, everyone walked away safely.
There have been three significant airliner engine failures in 72 hours. All aircraft survived. All are Boeing; 777 (Denver), 747 (Maastricht) and 737 (Makassar.)
That's a lot of engine failures. It's hard to find a common mode here, other than they're Boeing, which is next to meaningless; the engines and airframes are all very different.
Still, it's hard to overcome instinct. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
(It's a quote from Ian Fleming; I'm not suggesting any sort of 'attack,' only that some common mode phenomenon could be in play)
We get 4 or 5 and we're going to have to look at this really hard. If I had a gun to my head when asked what is going on I would speculate that perhaps these engines need more scrutiny before returning to service after a long COVID-19 hiatus. But then I don't actually know if that was even the case for any or all of the engines involved.
Hit the nail on the head here. The bigger problem isn't that there was an engine failure or even a blade off failure. The problem is that the containment failed. An engine is designed to lose a blade, have the cowling and engine frame contain the damage and land safely. When that containment fails, the damage and potential for catastrophe increases exponentially.[Edit - Spelling]
The engine lost its shrapnel barrier. It it had managed to ingest debris, the fans could have blown their way through the fuselage, killing anyone in the line of fire. Something is to blame for an event that is never supposed to happen.
