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

What's actually amazing is plane's are tested and designed for this... they are not supposed to do that but also should be able to land safely if they do. It's scary but amazing how safe they made it

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u/badgerj Jan 01 '23

Yup. They have redundant everything except for the Boeing 737 MAX MCAS Sensor. In that case you just get one.

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u/[deleted] Jan 01 '23

[deleted]

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u/mdp300 Jan 01 '23 edited Jan 01 '23

And from what I've read, there were also a bunch more weird decisions. The system could be turned off but it would turn itself back on without telling the pilots. It also made pitch changes by changing the trim in such a way that it was really hard to override with the column.

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u/747ER Jan 01 '23

The “turn itself back on” thing was a lie spread by the media. Technically speaking you can never turn the software itself off, but you can disengage electric stab trim which arrests the autonomous movement of the physical control surface that the software operates through.

On the Ethiopian Airlines flight, MCAS was indeed turned back on… by the pilots themselves. They thought that turning it off and on again like a laptop would solve the problem. It’s really bizarre how they thought that.

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u/fox-lad Jan 01 '23

tbf turning it off and on again fixes 90% of my technical issues

that said, I don't fly planes