‘It just blew fire’: Kauai woman watched as an engine fell apart on flight 328
hawaiinewsnow.com
hawaiinewsnow.com
Respect airline crews.
0: https://web.archive.org/web/20080723051103/http://www.scifi....
When you're being chased by large predators (or a sudden rockfall, tidal wave, fire, etc.), that may be useful.
When you're in a highly technical environment in which the entire group's survival is a unitary phenomenon (everybody's, or overall, survival either does or does not happen), everyone going their own way is precisely the wrong thing to do. That's a relatively new development evolutionarily.
Neither is much use on a plane with an engine on fire.
Compare to "Don't worry, everything will be fine", I found this calms me down better. Because it keeps me occupied on verifying the claim rather than allowing me wonder about what "fine" was actually meat.
But again, we don't actually know why "many adults were screaming" there, maybe they've already figured it out, and they are screaming because they don't want to go someplace else :-D
In general I think it would also help to educate people more about how much abuse a plane likely can stand. For me a plane is too much of a fragile aluminium tube with a ton of explosive fuel and some superheated engines, at a scary high altitude.
The latter if I used points on someone else on the flight because that means fun sexy time won’t happen if we go down like this
I’m just never worried about the unexpected drama or turbulence or crashing, its out of my hands
We have a serious problem with this aircraft, and we're going to return to [origin]. We must first reduce our weight, so those of you at the rear will soon see a white spray from the wings as we dump some fuel. That should take about 20 minutes, and we'll then begin our descent.
Please listen to the instructions from the cabin crew, who will prepare you for the landing."
"Landing", in this case, meant the heaviest landing I've ever experienced, followed by the strongest braking, and fire engines surrounding the plane and spraying the undercarriage. Fortunately, this was a precaution, and we didn't have to evacuate the plane.
The crew stayed with the passengers until everything was sorted out (luggage, hotels etc), and I found myself in conversation with an elderly couple from row 1, the first officer and the purser. The woman passenger said she had seen how calm the purser was, and was reassured that all was fine. The purser replied "ma'am, I'm trained to stay calm. This is the worst incident of my career, and I'm due to retire next year."
The first officer explained that the primary hydraulics had failed. The hydraulic fluid is flammable, and could be leaking somewhere hot (or due to be hot, i.e. the wheels). They pressed a button which opened a valve and flushed the hydraulic pipes with inert gas, but it wasn't possible to know if that removed any/enough remaining fluid -- hence the fire engines spraying the plane when it landed.
One time I was taking my usual flight over the Irish Sea and the pilot comes on and says “unfortunately we’ve encountered a mechanical issue and will be redirecting to Manchester”.
That’s the first time I’ve seen people crying on a plane, most people were calm though. I was a bit nervous but I realised there was nothing I could do about it except keep calm and not distract cabin crew.
Never found out what happened, we all just shuffled onto a different plane once we landed at Manchester and then took the shortest flight I’ve ever taken in my life, can’t have been more than 20 minutes from Manc to East Mids
That wasn't an O-ring, but metal cladding of the engine.
Assuming she should know mechanical engineering is bizarre.
I don't think he necessarily did assume that she has mechanical engineering knowledge. He just corrected a false statement.
Rather, the writer probably used the word o-ring specifically because of association with the Challenger disaster. They probably remember (maybe subconsciously) a lot of discussion of o-rings in a disaster back in the day so that word popped into mind when describing a part related to this disaster.
United B772 at Denver on Feb 20th 2021, engine inlet separates from engine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26208555 - Feb 2021 (462 comments)
I cannot imagine seeing an engine on fire outside your window and being that calm. Just incredible.
I've been on turbulent fligts before where people where screeming but the plane was perfectly fine.
(and confusing the poor airport ATC who didn't understand where the plane went)
The pilots of Colgan Air had to attend a "tail-stall" course about a month prior to the accident. As a professional pilot I know that if I found myself in a stall less than a month after training about it, the first thing that comes to mind is a "tail stall" and the recovery procedure is counter-intuitive (pitch up, not down). A tail stall has very subtle differences from that of a regular and are hard to distinguish which are which.
I have don’t know how accurate it is, but it’s a solid reminder how complex some seemingly obvious things to non experts are. https://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/1_3_4_3.html
(Having a copilot helps.)
Flying is terrifying.
737 Max.
In summary, the MCAS' dependence on one sensor was anomalous for Boeing and aviation engineering practice, and serves to emphasize the importance of the dual-path practice.
I know there's a 737-Max joke in there somewhere ;)
One of the engines somehow managed to shred itself to pieces and fall off the wing onto the tarmac. The bang was apparently shrapnel and scrap metal hitting the fuselage rather than an actual explosion.
As we hadn't actually taken off yet there wasn't all that much drama, but boy it was a long wait until we finally got off the plane and could use the overnight lodging vouchers the airline provided.
There are passengers who cause total mayhem even when the plane is not moving [0]
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/asia/united-passenger-dragged...
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/21/africa/nigeria-miliary-pl...
That is not a given at all - many planes, especially commercial airlines, will still be able to glide with no engines operational.
Also, "Florida man" is a meme.
So in this case the island name, gender, and flight number are all just part of the tease.
The title is her introduction!
That's a lot of engine failures. It's hard to find a common mode here, other than they're Boeing, which is next to meaningless; the engines and airframes are all very different.
Still, it's hard to overcome instinct. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
(It's a quote from Ian Fleming; I'm not suggesting any sort of 'attack,' only that some common mode phenomenon could be in play)
We get 4 or 5 and we're going to have to look at this really hard. If I had a gun to my head when asked what is going on I would speculate that perhaps these engines need more scrutiny before returning to service after a long COVID-19 hiatus. But then I don't actually know if that was even the case for any or all of the engines involved.
I wonder why you would freeze the turkey before throwing it in. Surely their aren't frozen birds that size flying around. It's like shooting a man.. before throwing him out an airplane.
The compressor blades hardly seem to notice. They are shot out of the rear of the engine as a pink mist.
Birds do stop engines. You just need to fly through enough them. Flight 1549 lost both engines while turning Canadian geese into deli slices.
I'm curious: do we know how many geese it takes to take out an engine?
Edit: I don’t get the downvotes. It’s true.
What you so casually dismiss could have been a tragic story if only one more failure had occurred.
Believing that the loss of single engine in this kind of plane will lead to a crash is not reasonable. It's a failure which happens all the time. If this sort of failure usually led to a crash then planes would be falling out of the sky all the time, which even someone with very little knowledge about planes (such as myself) should very well know doesn't happen.
Saying otherwise is literal FUD. Our society seems to run on FUD now though so par for the course I guess.
In addition disintegrating jet engines sometimes cause problems by shooting fragments of turbine into the body of the plane. There are very valid reasons to be worried even if you know you have one working engine.
You have contradicted yourself by saying, "someone with very little knowledge about planes (such as myself)" and also saying, "It's a failure that happens all the time." Knowing that the engine failures happen all the time is not something that someone with very little knowledge would know.
In short your comment was not well thought out.
The most famous uncontained engine failure incident was the 1989 Sioux City crash of United 232, where exploding fan blade bits took out all hydraulic lines and the plane became nearly uncontrollable. The pilots almost got it on the ground using only engine thrust to control the plane, but it crashed as it came in and 112 people died.
Similar hydraulic problems arising from uncontained engine failure caused Baikal Airlines Flight 130 to go down in 1994 (125 fatalities), and a 1984 Aeroflot crash (110 fatalities).
Shrapnel from exploding engines also killed two passengers on Delta 1288 in 1996, and led to a fatality in in a 1973 incident on National Airlines 27.
Uncontained engine failure is not common and it's very serious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine_engine_failure#Notable...
Contained failures mean the disintegrating parts don't exit the engine casing, they either remain inside the engine casing or exit out the back. The reporting so far is that all parts exited out the back, not through the engine casing in a way that could have caused catastrophic damage to other parts of the plane.
I'm not sure I'd say they happen "all the time" but engine shutdowns are not uncommon. Read avherald.com for a few weeks to see just how many technical problems come up routinely in commercial aviation.
There is an unfortunate famous incident in Amsterdam decades ago where a 747 cargo plane lost an engine, and the ejected material caused additional damage. Then the engine sheared off, striking another engine. Then it became a disaster scenario.
Myself an no other passengers on any plane are comfortable with losing an engine. Only people sitting at home, crunching numbers, are unconcerned.
It may be technically true, but words matter and "meh" is just an ignorant thing to type out in this situation.
All these emotionless HN comments - most of us would be terrified in that position.
Some types of engine failures I imagine would correlate with failure of the other engine, other types not so much. Is there data on this?
And many passengers on the flight casually dismissed it as well from what the article says.
Also, sometimes engines fail silently and passengers don’t even realize it since air keeps blowing through it to keep it spinning. You likely have been on a plane with a downed engine and didn’t even realize it if you fly regularly. You were fine.
>Just as a practical example of reduced range with an engine out, We departed Santiago, Chile in a 747 freighter with enough fuel to reach Miami. During the climb out we lost an engine. We elected to continue rather than dump fuel and return. However, because we could not reach our intended cruising altitude, the increased fuel burn meant we only had enough fuel to reach Panama City, Panama
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/7437/how-far-ca...
See e.g. https://www.aerotime.aero/25513-reckless-pilot-flies-with-on... and https://youtu.be/0ga8UFy1M04?list=PLiNyr6QSO28P2bKMcv2O_lK83...
The FAA estimates that jet engines fail once per 375,000 flight hours. So no, you're not "likely" to have been on a plane with a downed engine.
If you wanna act so damn tough criticizing what may well be partially an emotional reaction of the part of these passengers, you should at least get your facts right.
ETOPS is "Extended Twin OPerationS". It doesn't have anything to do with water. It has to do with range from an alternate airport when flying twin engine aircraft. The terminology has been updated to EDTO (Extended Diversion Time Operations) to apply the guidance to four engine planes like the 747-8.
The longest route in the world is Singapore to Newark, 18.5 hours, so six isn't gonna get you there, but it'll get you to a safe landing.
Finally, we have two engines (in part) so you can safely lose one. Losing one engine when you've only got one is a substantially more significant emergency.
If you normally cruise with two engines at 50% going to one engine at 100% isn’t such a stretch.
ICAO conveniently has some info: https://www.icao.int/SAM/Documents/2014-EDTO/EDTO%20Module%2...
Often that's how OEM's will get their cold weather testing done, by just flying up in the winter.
And here’s a list of diversion airports: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversion_airport
They hardly do anymore. The remaining 3 and 4 engine airliners like the 747 and A380 are on the way out. Twin engines like the 777, 787, and the A350 are going to be the only planes flying these long haul routes going forward because they are just so much more efficient. With increased reliability over the years, ETOPS regulations have loosened up far enough that you can fly to/from any point on earth without being beyond the max range from land.
Yes. But then it's used up its safety margin. So your logic works for why you shouldn't worry when the plane is in perfectly good working order and has two working engines. Your logic is completely idiotic for when one engine has failed.
> , and glide with none
Not very far, it can't! About 150 km from cruising altitude. This plane was still climbing out of its departure airport. Do you remember just how far US Airways 1549 got to comfortably glide after losing power during its ascent? Give me a break.
> unless it blew up and took out a wing
How's debris in the wing (possibly in the fuel tank) for ya? https://theairlinewebsite.com/uploads/monthly_2021_02/152844...
> And even if they were flying over the pacific, planes are required to be within a certain distance of land at all times. Probably enough to get to an airport.
The Boeing 777 can be ETOPS-330! 330 minutes at one-engine speed from a diversion airport. That's pretty far! Sure, on one engine they'd be fine, but you're a moron for ridiculing them for having shaved away their safety margin.
> Edit: I don’t get the downvotes. It’s true.
"It's true"? "It" is a bunch of lazy opinionated crap that's meant to ridicule someone for being worried when a very safe mode of transportation just shaved away a gigantic part of its safety margin.