Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire United Flight lands safely after engine drops parts

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...-colorado-plane-lands-safely/4526251001/

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Recently heard in the mechanic’s break room......”I got some of these left over, wonder where they went”! memtb

Best to have something like this happen 25 miles from the airport in Denver instead of halfway between the west coast and Honolulu.

My thought as well. My understanding is that the flight from U.S. mainland to Honolulu is one of the longest commercial "over water" flight segments in the world.

That be scary as hell

Especially sitting over the wing on that side....

Pucker factor 11, right there. I wonder what NTSB will dredge up...little voice in my head says "maintenance error." Just a wildass guess, though.

Bird strike?

Could be, but that's not what it looks like to me. It looks to me like all the panels were not properly secured after maintenance of some kind. I truly am just guessing, though. An A&P with experience on engines might be able to offer a better explanation...I'm just a lowly avionics guy.

Twin engine planes are just so much fun!

Until they arent, huh?

Twin engine planes have enough power to fly on one engine. As long as there isn't any other damage from the engine letting go, (ex. hydraulic lines, etc.) pilots are trained to fly and land it, at least in most First World airlines. The most critical time is if it happens right at liftoff. That being said, I still wouldn't want to be on one when it happens.

And that second engine can get you all the way to the crash site.

That Outer Limits episode with the monster on the airplane wing scared the 9hit out of me as a little kid.

But not as much as watching a seized, flaming engine out my window seat to Hawaii.

I would think compressor stall which is essentially an explosion in the compressor section possibly caused by FOD (foreign object damage, bird strike, or a fatigue induced failure of a compressor blade). That might explain the missing engine nacelle, etc..

Do you mean the Twilight Zone where the monkey was out on the wing ripping it apart? I remember that episode from when I was a kid, scared the H E double toothpicks out of me!

Seems like one of the Creepshow movies featured the same story. I may not be remembering correctly...but I do remember "thanks for the ride, Lady." One of my college roomies walked around saying that for months.

Pretty spectacular uncontained engine failure. The cowling isn't supposed to come apart like that and the FAA will want to research why it didn't stay intact. It's hard to say what caused it, could have been a bird strike or easily could have been some other issue, the NTSB will figure it out. Takeoff is when you're most likely to have an engine failure because that's when you're using the highest thrust, it puts the most stress on components. Another time is when you level off at altitude and the power comes back, surprisingly they'll sometimes fail then if the thrust bearings are weak. I had that happen as a passenger on a Delta 767 out of, ironically, Honolulu when we leveled off at 31000'.

Kudos to the pilots, they handled it well and everyone is back safely. I fly the 777 and it's a great airplane, it flies fine at max takeoff weight on one engine. They're designed to safely handle that exact scenario of an engine failure on takeoff. I'd almost rather be flying a 777 with one engine than most other planes with two or three.....almost.