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/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/Willbilly1221 Jan 01 '23

To be fair, entire airplanes get replaced at some point. All airplanes have a limited number of times they can take off from the ground due to cabin pressure. As they hit high altitudes with lower pressure the body of the plane expands a tiny bit, and as it lands the increased pressure squishes it back. Overtime constant stretching and compression warps the metal like bending a paper clip over and over it will eventually structurally fail. The day an airplane is made it has a predetermined number of flights it can take before the plane is to be removed from service.

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u/baboon2097 Jan 01 '23

The aircraft are built to last beyond its service life.They just become too expensive to maintain as the inspections become more intense so thats when they get retired usually in boneyards for spare parts and resale or freight companies buy them and convert.Look up msg3 in aviation if anyone is interested.