Why do uncontained engine failures still occur?
One of the absolute requirements of an aircraft turbine engine (usually some sort of turbofan or turboprop) installation is that, in the event of a destructive failure of the engine, the engine cowling must be able to contain any and all fragments released in the process.


No, there is not. The requirement is that the engine cowling must be able to contain fragments released in case of a single blade failure.

If just a blade fails, it will often break more downstream, but as long as it is just blades breaking loose, the casing should be able to stop them and generally does.

However if the disk that holds the blades itself breaks, the energy is much higher and the cowling can't stop that. It is not really possible to make it strong enough to contain this as it would be too heavy for flight, so it is not a requirement.

All¹ the recent cases of uncontained engine failures were that the whole disk broke and left the engine in several large pieces.



¹ The Southwest flight 1380, B737 near Philadelphia on Apr 17th 2018 is a kind of exception. It was only a blade failure, but it was also initially contained. The blade that failed was actually stopped by the cowling. However then a secondary failure of the inlet cowling itself, well ahead of the fan, occurred and that was what caused the further damage and injury.