Hacker News Reader

Comment by aaronbrethorst | Hacker News Reader

This really doesn't make me feel very confident about getting on a 787 for a 14 hour flight next week.

tbf the Trent 1000 is one of two engine options on the 787; more have GE engines fitted so on the balance of probability your aircraft has a completely different engine anyway.

The ability to fly for extended distances on a single engine is something modern long haul aircraft are designed for and pilots trained for, and even if it's a RR-engined aircraft you're probably more likely to have engine issues with birdstrikes than the apparent metal fatigue issues with the Trent 1000. Looking at the size of those parts that apparently fell I'd feel more unsafe on the ground!

It's an El Al flight, and their entire fleet of 787-9s use RR Trent 1000 engines.

I'm exaggerating a bit about my concern. I know the statistics on modern aviation safety, even with Boeing's, uh, recent track record on such things.

Frankly, in the grand scheme of things, I'm more concerned about my safety driving in Tel Aviv than I am about my flight getting there ;)

It's not the per-passenger-mile safety that you should be concerned with (the ones that are usually trotted out), it is the per-flight safety that you should be concerned with.

That's about 15[1]/45000000 for 2018, not sure what the longer term trends are. So your chances of dying due to an airplane crash if the distribution is random is 1 in 3 million give or take. With 'bits falling out of the engine' the distribution is of course no longer random.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/02/health/plane-crash-deaths...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2018/12/28/air...

edit: found better figures.

If it has GEnx engines you have little to worry about. The easiest way to tell the difference is the GE has metal leading edges on the fan. The Trent fans are all cfrp.

CFRP = Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer.

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/aeroengine-composit...

Can you tell this when booking your tickets? It isn't a detail I've seen using most travel websites or even an airline's own app.

Last minute airplane swaps are not uncommon, so such a feature doesn't necessarily help.

You probably can figure it out with some sleuthing. For one example, SeatGuru records every airline fleet's different plane types. Once you have airline + plane type for each of that airline's routes, I bet you can dig up the engine type from that info.

There's often also press about it - eg https://www.geaviation.com/press-release/genx-engine-family/...

If it has GEnx engines you have little to worry about.

GE has also had problems with the GEnx including a double engine failure on a 787.

On the contrary, it makes me more confident.

Engine parts melt and fall off, and the plane doesn't seem disturbed. Awesome engineering!

https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-...

Boeing is a company of truly stunning arrogance and greed. Boeing's case against Bombardier was when I had my personal "oh shit" moment and realized they'd started doing work with paper instead of doing work with wrenches. Any company which starts down that road has little chance of getting off, and it ends with dead people.

The lack of mention of Rolls-Royce here seems more than a little amiss, considering the engine flaw seems to be due to their error as far as I have heard.

Also it seems the airline chooses the engine type they want on their planes, not Boeing. It's a purchase option.

It might be the purchase time option commits the airworthiness type certificate to a particular engine make/model (or range of them). Typically the airplane lease is separate from the engine lease, which helps the airline deal with the totally separate maintenance requirements between airframe and powerplant.

You don't know the cause. Could have been a bird ingestion on this or a previous flight.

I agree, but then there's no reason to only target Boeing as the OP did. Based on what we know that it's almost certainly metal from the engine, the one company that's most likely to be responsible is Rolls-Royce so if we had to prematurely pick one it wouldn't be Boeing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com