Jennifer Riordan death: Southwest Airlines explosion victim’s heartbroken husband speaks out

The heartbroken husband of a woman killed after she was almost sucked out of a Southwest Airlines plane window following a mid-air explosion has spoken out for the first time.

Bank executive Jennifer Riordan, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, was returning from a business trip in New York when she died in the horrifying incident on the Dallas-bound flight.

A week after the tragedy, her husband Michael has told of the heartbreak he felt having to tell their two children: “Mummy’s not coming home, guys.”

Mr Riordan first said he spoke to his wife for the last time when she called him before boarding the flight.

The couple had planned to go to see their son's little league baseball game that evening.

"She called just to say ‘I'm going to the airport’, and we said, ‘love you, safe travels,’"' Mr Riordan, a former chief operating officer for the city of Albuquerque, told NBC on Tuesday.

They were married for more than 20 years.

The mother-of-two was reportedly hit by shrapnel after the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 blew an engine at 32,000ft on Tuesday.

Parts of the engine smashed the window next to Mrs Riordan and she was almost completely sucked out of the plane before fellow passengers fought to drag her back inside.

Mrs Riordan died of blunt impact trauma to her head, neck and torso and her death was ruled accidental, according to James Garrow, spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Health.