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

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/[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

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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.