It would be interesting to know whether a geared turbofan engine might be safer than the conventional one as regards the type of incident sadly suffered by Southwest Airlines. A fan rotating more slowly might be less likely to lose a blade and the centrifugal force being less might mean the casing might retain it should it fail.
One thing that is surprising is the time the NTSB will take to draw definitive conclusions when they can already see the place where the blade fractured, unlike in crashes where thousands of pieces have to be recovered to find the cause.
