Boeing 777 engine fire.

[Cycleops]

Shares in Pratt and Whitney have gone down faster than that engine cowling.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Surely, the real good news here is, despite the failure of the engine, the aircraft landed safely ?

Exactly!!

 

[Cycleops]

Imagine being on this 707 in 1959 when it lost (literally) three of it's four engines during a demonstration flight:

View: https://youtu.be/pBVQzzeGKNg

 

[gavroche]

And they stopped Concorde with only one crash !!

 

[slowmotion]

View attachment 575181

Duct tape has a proven track record......

https://k0lee.com/2010/01/bear-chews-up-plane-duct-tape-to-the-rescue/

 

[DaveReading]

And they stopped Concorde with only one crash !!

Concorde continued to fly for 3 years after the accident in 2000.

 

[Illaveago]

True.

It was basically outdated and not making money - or not enough money - and costing too much to keep going. ISTR that it needed some kind of upgrade to remedy a flaw or risk that wasn't economical to do - but I might have made that up.

My sister was a high powered exec in the 90s and flew on it a few times. She wasn't a fan. She said it was a bit pokey and not very comfortable.

Air France couldn't make it pay whereas it funded British Airways .

 

[Beebo]

The UK has banned all 777s with those engines - the FAA in the USA didn't - but then Boeing said they should all be grounded anyway

The people in Boeing must feel the Gods are upset with them!!!

There are less than 70 of these similar planes in the whole world so it isn’t a huge problem. Unless you’re on one.
And with the huge downturn in flying it isn’t an issue at the moment.

 

[DaveReading]

There are less than 70 of these similar planes in the whole world so it isn’t a huge problem.

The UK's ban will have negligible effect - there have never been any of the affected type with UK airlines, and hardly any foreign ones have been in or over the UK in recent months, apart from a handful of United's.

 

[figbat]

Air France couldn't make it pay whereas it funded British Airways .

I once heard (in a marketing training course) that most Concorde passengers had their flights booked for them by PAs and such, so weren’t aware of the price. BA asked the passengers what they thought the flights had cost and their estimates were about 3x higher than the actual price - so BA obliged.

 

[Wobblers]

That the shroud. Made from inconel and incredibly tough, supposed to contain the shrapnel in the event that the turbine blades let go, yet when it was really needed it fell off...

Be interesting to see if its a design issue, a maintenance concern, or because these jets have been sta ding largely idle and unused.

Actually it was the engine cowling that departed the aircraft. It's job is purely aerodynamic: to ensure smooth laminar flow into the engine and wing otherwise Bad Things happen. The orange thing that can be seen appears to be the kevlar shroud, and it seems to have done its job: the fan blade didn't come through the side, but instead was ejected out the front and took the cowling with it.

This pilot on youtube has a good take on what happened.

It also turns out that Pratt & Whitney have had trouble with fan blades cracking on these engines before, including one rather similar engine failure in 2018. Oh... and a slightly different 4000 series P&W engine broke on a 747 in Europe over the weekend, too. Suggests an issue with fatigue cracking, so maintenance?

Perhaps they should consider renaming themselves Prat & Twitney?

 

[swee'pea99]

Normally planes are flying for an amazing amount of hours to keep them profitable, and only get pulled out of operational duties for scheduled maintenance. Who knows what sort of damage is being caused to them by lying idle. We might be about to find out the hard way....

I'm sure I once read that the average airliner spends 75% of its life flying - a 20 year old plane would have been actually in the air for 15 years. Otherwise the numbers wouldn't add up.

The American Government cancelled an order for aircraft due to the quality of workmanship , tools and swarf from drilling left inside the wings .

 

[mustang1]

Hey cool... I never knew this model of aircraft had after burners!

 

[Illaveago]

Actually it was the engine cowling that departed the aircraft. It's job is purely aerodynamic: to ensure smooth laminar flow into the engine and wing otherwise Bad Things happen. The orange thing that can be seen appears to be the kevlar shroud, and it seems to have done its job: the fan blade didn't come through the side, but instead was ejected out the front and took the cowling with it.

This pilot on youtube has a good take on what happened.

It also turns out that Pratt & Whitney have had trouble with fan blades cracking on these engines before, including one rather similar engine failure in 2018. Oh... and a slightly different 4000 series P&W engine broke on a 747 in Europe over the weekend, too. Suggests an issue with fatigue cracking, so maintenance?

Perhaps they should consider renaming themselves Prat & Twitney?

Or "Knock knock!"
"Who's there?".

 

[DaveReading]

I'm sure I once read that the average airliner spends 75% of its life flying - a 20 year old plane would have been actually in the air for 15 years. Otherwise the numbers wouldn't add up.

75% would equate to 18 hours per day on average - that's way too high.

A typical commercial jet flies around 4,000 hours per year, so around 11 hours per day.