In this case the whole fan disk is gone. Uncontained failure like this can down the plane depending on the where the parts fly.
One possibility is that the fan shaft failed, and since the fan was no longer attached to the plane that it had been pulling through the sky, it went happily ahead by itself (perhaps still in one piece), taking the cowling with it.
It doesn't say anything about jokes.
Let's compare: Qantas 32 lost throttle on one engine, lost one engine completely (obviously), flaps, and ABS. United 232 lost its tail engine, elevator, rudder, aileron, flaps, and had no ABS to begin with.
Qantas 32 was able to maintain a holding pattern for an hour while diagnosing the aircraft, and was given enough time to calmly calculate a glide path and put the airplane down safely. United 232 landed at twice the safe speed, with 6x the safe sink rate, on its wing.
Qantas 32 had 0 fatalities or injuries, United 232 had 111 fatalities and 172 injuries.