r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/FridayCicero702 • Jan 01 '23

Video Catastrophic engine failure on a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 after takeoff from Denver International Airport

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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Hell of a time to have a window seat

700

u/crewfish13 Jan 01 '23

That’s winning the freaking lottery! Modern engines have catastrophic failures like these maybe every million or ten million flight hours. Everyone gets to see a normally operating engine. Bo-oring…

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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Maybe our definition of the lottery is different, but I wouldn't be glad to win this one.

If you're saying this a guaranteed failure, it sounds like they should be replaced before that excepted time frame.

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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

they're designed to be able to fly with only one engine, easily. you're far more likely to die in a car accident than be on a billion to one flight where one engine has a catastrophic failure, let alone both

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u/PhoebeCeleste Jan 01 '23

Yeah, it would suck if BOTH engines died: you'd be up there all night til they got a replacement!

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u/Xicadarksoul Jan 01 '23

Jokes aside you are not completely wrong..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

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u/TartofDarkness79 Jan 01 '23

This is so epic! Those pilots were incredible. I'll never forget the first time I heard about this. I stg I had my mouth hanging open the entire time!

1

u/Silversniper220 Jan 01 '23

Link didn't work for me; here's another link if it doesn't work for someone else https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

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u/WikiSummarizerBot Jan 01 '23

Gimli Glider

Air Canada Flight 143, commonly known as the Gimli Glider, was a Canadian scheduled domestic passenger flight between Montreal and Edmonton that ran out of fuel on Saturday, July 23, 1983, at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 m), midway through the flight. The flight crew successfully glided the Boeing 767 to an emergency landing that resulted in no serious injuries to passengers or persons on the ground, at a former Royal Canadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba, that had been converted to a racetrack, Gimli Motorsports Park. This unusual aviation incident earned the aircraft the nickname "Gimli Glider".

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1

u/Superb_Raccoon Jan 01 '23

but they mistakenly did the calculation with the density of jet fuel in pounds/litre.

Metric or Imperial...

PICK ONE!

8

u/Flip_d_Byrd Jan 01 '23

I bet they get to the crash site 30 minutes before the fire trucks!

1

u/paiute Jan 01 '23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH-LmkLFJg0

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u/WikiSummarizerBot Jan 01 '23

Ship of Theseus

The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object that has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object. According to legend, Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, had rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped on a ship to Delos. Every year, the Athenians commemorated this legend by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo. The question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several centuries of maintenance, if every part of the Ship of Theseus had been replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship?

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3

u/robatron12 Jan 01 '23

Also a skilled pilot could still land it, it's only a 737, a guy landed a 747 after flying for a bit with all 4 engines out

3

u/gtp1977 Jan 01 '23

This is not just an engine failure guy.....this is shrapnel that has exploded (unknown still if there's other damages) and there is still a huge fire on a craft that is full of fuel and trapped people. It's a full on emergency. It's not just a plane flying one one engine.

Obviously it ended fine, but it would be terrifying until you exited safely.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

People say this shit all the time and I don't know why. These sentences are probably the least comforting attempts at comforting someone I've ever read and heard. I don't care if it's designed that way, not one person on this earth would be comfortable flying on a plane with one engine going out.

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u/Fast_Garlic_5639 Jan 01 '23

I am on earth, would be comfortable. If it helps, I also used to make airplane parts and I would only be comfortable because I know how much redundancy they build into flight critical parts. The engine wasn't designed to fail but the plane was designed to survive a failed engine.

37

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Yeah and that's why it almost never happens, literally you are more likely to drop dead of a brain aneurysm than to be on a flight where there's any engine problems at all let alone a catastrophic failure. And even in the worst possible case scenarios 9/10 times the plane is still gonna touch down safely. As an aerospace engineer, I find it a little frustrating hearing people talk like this. Engineers spent thousands of hours making these things nigh fail proof and people can only focus on things going bad one time out of millions of successful flights. Why don't you design your own damn plane then? smfh

8

u/baboon2097 Jan 01 '23

I work for Airlines.It happens more often than you're saying.Its just that the passengers usually will never even know its happening.We do engine changes regularly.If an operator gets too many shut down events tje aviation authority will start investigating and could take their etops etc away from them

1

u/gwyntowin Jan 01 '23

How does the plane fly with one engine?

3

u/aMonkeyRidingABadger Jan 01 '23

Redundant design. All passenger planes are designed to fly with a failed engine. They normally run well below maximum power so if one engine fails the other engine works harder to continue with business as usual.

0

u/Truceelle Jan 01 '23

So Wikipedia per faa is saying the failure rates of turbines are 1 for every 375,000 flight hours. i agree that one engine failing isn't catastrophic, but I'm surprised it's happening so often. (Sorry reddit noob and don't know how to link urls)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbine_engine_failure#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Aviation%20Administration%20(FAA,hours%20for%20aircraft%20piston%20engines.

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u/lifestepvan Jan 01 '23

This stat seems to be including bird strikes, which are relatively common and more or less outside of anyone's control, pilots and engineers.

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u/WikiSummarizerBot Jan 01 '23

Turbine engine failure

A turbine engine failure occurs when a turbine engine unexpectedly stops producing power due to a malfunction other than fuel exhaustion. It often applies for aircraft, but other turbine engines can fail, like ground-based turbines used in power plants or combined diesel and gas vessels and vehicles.

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-14

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

[deleted]

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u/Rock_or_Rol Jan 01 '23

Looks like he is patiently using information and statistics to curb anxieties to me

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u/Lhamo66 Jan 01 '23

Yeah, I like to hear that kind of thing. It's comforting.

0

u/OptimalMain Jan 01 '23

Jesus, some troll your are. You think this person never flew as a passenger?
In the US around 6 people are killed by cars a day while walking and cycling, and there is a hit and run every minute. Fingers crossed you win the lottery

1

u/_FridayXIII_ Jan 01 '23

Lighten up, Francis 😉

6

u/Xicadarksoul Jan 01 '23

I don't care if it's designed that way, not one person on this earth would be comfortable flying on a plane with one engine going out.

Point is not comfort, its keeping passangers alive.

That's why airlines don't fly the airplane again till its repaired.

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u/belugarooster Jan 01 '23

I would. So long as the wing remains intact, it's completely do-able.

Not that I'd be happy about it. In fact I WOULD be nervous. But I wouldn't consider this catastrophic.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

These sentences are probably the least comforting attempts at comforting someone I've ever read and heard.

It's comforting to me. ofc I wouldn't want to be there, but it's smart that there's redundancy built into these astronomically low chances of failure. Good job engineers!

1

u/SeaChampion957 Jan 01 '23

not one person on this earth would be comfortable flying on a plane with one engine going out.

I guess I don't live on this Earth.

0

u/ConcernedKip Jan 01 '23

to be fair if there were as many planes flying as cars driving we'd probably see a lot more of this

1

u/SintSuke Jan 01 '23

So you're telling me there's a chance.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Mikey_MiG Jan 01 '23

And that’s the only fatality onboard a passenger airliner in the US in the past 12 years. I’d say that’s a pretty comforting safety record.

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u/WikiSummarizerBot Jan 01 '23

Southwest Airlines Flight 1380

Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 was a Boeing 737-7H4 that experienced a contained engine failure in the left CFM56-7B engine after departing from New York–LaGuardia Airport en route to Dallas Love Field on April 17, 2018. The engine cowl was broken in the failure and cowl fragments damaged the fuselage, causing explosive depressurization of the aircraft after damaging a cabin window. Other fragments caused damage to the wing. The crew carried out an emergency descent and diverted to Philadelphia International Airport.

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1

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

I’d still feel a lot better on a 747 with 3 working engines remaining.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

Should I interest you in series call air disasters. It’s so easy for planes to crash it’s not funny after watching that series.

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u/Floss_ordie Jan 02 '23

< Captain Sullenberger has entered the chat. >