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Comment by jiggawatts | Hacker News Reader

A turbine blade or a few coming off can have the same effect as a bomb going off near the plane.

The pieces would tear through the plane like shrapnel from a weapon.

Military anti air missiles tend to use continuous rods to slice planes in half instead of fragmentation warheads that leave small holes. The aim is to sever control lines, not merely to puncture.

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Turbine blades puncturing the tail section? I'm not convinced.

https://a.dropoverapp.com/cloud/download/8a578eea-0de8-4504-...

Unconfined engine failures do the fuselage damage in the proximity of the engine: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187775032...

Several anti-aircraft systems can and do use fragmentation warheads. The BUK that shot down MH17 used one and the impact patterns are strikingly similar. Take a look at the “Reconstruction” section in this: https://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/miscell...

The Russian Buk, S-300 and S-400 largely use missiles with blast fragmentation.

For example, see the SAMS section here: https://www.gichd.org/fileadmin/uploads/gichd/Publications/G...

> A turbine blade or a few coming off can have the same effect as a bomb going off near the plane.

Not in any passenger jet Embraer would get caught dead making. To my knowledge, most jet engines that are parallel to passenger sections require cowling that is reinforced to withstand a blade going loose.

They did in the past but they are designed now to disintegrate without taking the rest of the plane with them. Not that something unusual couldn't happen, but the engines are tested on this very thoroughly, based on previous accidents. Even when it has gone wrong in recent times it hasn't been catastrophic.

Here's another incident you can compare against:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1hm0nf7/an_il22_t...

Both engines were running at the time of impact as apparently the plane was being maneuvered via differential thrust.

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