[HN Gopher] United B772 at Denver on Feb 20th 2021, engine inlet...
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United B772 at Denver on Feb 20th 2021, engine inlet separates from
engine
Author : haunter
Score : 691 points
Date : 2021-02-20 22:25 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (avherald.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (avherald.com)
| subhro wrote:
| No doubt this was a happy ending, but modern airplanes like the
| 777 are perfectly capable of flying, even climbing with one
| engine. So, while it seems very heroic on the part of the pilot,
| it is pretty ordinary and non news.
|
| What I do think is a happy outcome is the debris from the
| disintegrating engine did not fall on someone and kill/injure
| them.
|
| Source: Pilot.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Flying on one engine is one thing. Flying one engine while the
| other is on fire due to unknown causes is another. Still
| newsworthy in my book.
|
| Source: also a pilot
| subhro wrote:
| Respectfully disagree. When you are flying with one turbofan,
| it does not matter why the other engine is on fire. The
| checklist says, shut off the fuel, if W&B allows, move fuel
| off the wing and drown the engine in CO2.
|
| Source: Over 3500 hours turbine time.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Im not saying that following the checklist is particularly
| hard, or the mechanics of what you need to do is outside
| the skill level of any competent pilot.
|
| I'm saying that practicing engine-outs/fires is
| psychologically different than bringing a flaming aircraft
| safely to the ground with several hundred souls on board.
| sadfev wrote:
| This could have gotten so bad so fast. Well trained pilots, arc,
| decent protocols and some luck saved 231 lives here!
| infodocket wrote:
| You can hear the air/ground communications for this flight here
| via LiveATC.net. The pilots declare an emergency and then a
| mayday call beginning at 1:15 of the audio.
| https://forums.liveatc.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1...
| jakear wrote:
| Curious, I had always heard it should be repeated 3 times, but
| here they're consistently repeating just twice.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| 3 times is just to "ensure" it gets heard.
| danaliv wrote:
| You'll find that there's a gap between what the books say
| about ATC comms and how things are actually done. No one is
| being pedantic in an emergency.
| [deleted]
| TangoFox wrote:
| If anyone is curious about what the books say, US Air
| Traffic Controllers use phraseology prescribed by FAA
| General Order 7110.65.
|
| Also known as _the 7110_ or _the point sixty-five_ , it
| includes rules that Air Traffic Controllers must follow to
| ensure safe and effective operations. So if you're a pilot
| and are wondering why you have a Hold For Release or are
| told "unable", you might find the reason in this document.
|
| The Wikipedia article [0] links the PDF version as well as
| the online version.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA_Order_7110.65
| danaliv wrote:
| Happy to see a controller here. Thanks for all the
| clearances. :)
| willyt wrote:
| It's slightly different for marine radio, where it follows
| the MIRPDANIO mnemonic you might be thinking of that?
| hnburnsy wrote:
| EMERGENCY- A distress or an urgency condition.
|
| DISTRESS (MAYDAY)- A condition of being threatened by serious
| and/or imminent danger and of requiring immediate assistance.
|
| URGENCY (PAN-PAN)- A condition of being concerned about safety
| and of requiring timely but not immediate assistance; a
| potential distress condition.
| willyt wrote:
| "Declaring an emergency" is US specific. The rest of the
| world doesn't recognise this phrase you have to use either
| "Mayday" for immediate danger to life or "Pan Pan" for less
| severe problems. As I understand it, "Declaring an emergency"
| is the equivalent of a Mayday and the US is very slowly
| switching away from this non standard phraseology.
| tjohns wrote:
| "Declaring an emergency" isn't even correct in the US. The
| FAR/AIM only lists "mayday" and "pan pan". (Yes, it's oddly
| common here in the US for some reason. I think some pilots
| are afraid to say the "m" word.)
|
| That said, controllers are human. As long as you get the
| message across somehow they'll do everything they can to
| help, even with non-standard phraseology.
|
| Of course, the risk of non-standard phraseology is that you
| might be misunderstood - especially in countries where
| English isn't the primary language. It's still good to
| stick to standard ICAO phraseology whenever possible.
| willyt wrote:
| For sure, I think in an English speaking country you
| would probably get your point across. They would most
| likely come back with asking for confirmation that you
| are declaring 'mayday', but you would probably cause
| varying degrees of confusion in many other countries.
|
| I suppose the aim is to make it absolutely clear as
| quickly as possible that you want ATC to press the big
| red button labeled 'crash' which sets off the alarms in
| the airport fire station and causes other controllers to
| start diverting flights away and telling planes on
| approach to go around.
|
| These two podcast episodes about the last major crash at
| Heathrow are pretty interesting if you want to know what
| happens in ATC during something like this. The fire
| appliances were already en route before the plane hit the
| ground. http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-
| speedbird-38-part-... http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-
| spink-and-speedbird-38-part-...
| xvf22 wrote:
| You can hear the fire alert going off before the mayday.
|
| The fact that they requested a left turn at first it meant the
| controller knew the right engine was out and they'd need left
| turns to come in. Always find the level of training impressive
| and I'm glad they made it back safely.
|
| Aviate, Navigate, Communicate
| msandford wrote:
| I don't follow how the right engine being out means left
| turns. Seems like you'd have extra thrust on the left side
| and you'd want to make right turns. They wanted to keep the
| right engine high? I'm not sure what I missed.
| xvf22 wrote:
| When turning into the dead engine, there's a tendency to
| overbank as the plane will yaw towards the inoperative
| engine.
| [deleted]
| waiseristy wrote:
| That's exactly the problem, turning too heavily into the
| side of the dead engine can introduce a situation where
| it's impossible to pull out of that turn.
| danaliv wrote:
| Turning into the live engine is more controllable. When you
| turn toward the dead engine, the tendency is to turn
| _more_. You can do it, but it's not as stable.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Can't wait for the synopsis on the Blancoliro YT channel.
| tialaramex wrote:
| "Mayday" is the internationally agreed code, so that's one
| reason to use that - but US accident investigators also noticed
| a pattern that American pilots are often too reluctant to
| declare emergency status when it's appropriate as it is here,
| because they feel it's "not that bad" yet. Having them say it's
| an emergency without saying "Mayday" is good enough and might
| mean a few more cases that should have been emergencies are
| declared as such.
|
| I might look for the link later, but there's an incident with a
| Youtube reconstruction where a private pilot is nearly out of
| fuel, the weather is poor, and he's approaching a USAF base en
| route to his last hope landing site. Airbases are military
| facilities, closed to civilian traffic. He asks the controller
| if he can land there. She says he can't... unless it's an
| emergency.
|
| He should say "Yes, this is an emergency, I'm on fumes here and
| the weather is much worse than I expected". She'd turn on the
| airfield's powerful landing lights, and maybe he'd spend the
| evening explaining his screw up and apologising to a base
| commander or at worst spend the night in a cell. Nobody dies.
| Instead he pressed on, and his dire situation only became clear
| to her when it was too late and he was already doomed.
| lisper wrote:
| Listening to the audio, the pilot first says, "We've
| experienced an engine failure, need a turn." ATC does not
| respond, so he calls again and says "Mayday" in order to
| unequivocally get their attention.
|
| There are actually two different emergency calls. There is
| "mayday", and there is "pan-pan", which is a less urgent
| version of "mayday", but that is hardly ever used.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| PAN-PAN is used more often than you might think, at least
| outside the US. In particular, any medical emergency would
| be a PAN-PAN.
|
| Here's an interesting example where two aircraft had
| declared PAN-PAN for quite different reasons, while coming
| into Sydney. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfidHywKmZI
| donarb wrote:
| Pan-pan is used for maritime distress calls when a ship is
| sinking.
| kps wrote:
| 'Panne' is French for 'breakdown'. (Like 'm'aider' is
| French for 'help me'.)
| nharada wrote:
| This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLlWf-Fk_YM
|
| Fear of declaring an emergency seems to be fairly common in
| GA incidents with lower airtime pilots.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I landed on a private runway due to bad weather. I saw it was
| private on the chart but seriously did not care.
|
| It was over a mile long and had landing lights. It was owned
| by some Texas billionaire brothers who kept their jet there.
| The people there were actually super nice and loaned us a car
| to get lunch.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Experienced pilots don't mind calling mayday, but:
|
| 1) Often ATC will ask you a lot of distracting questions. It
| starts with what the problem is and how many souls are on
| board, but can be lengthy and doesn't solve your problem.
|
| If you listen to the Sully Hudson flight, you can hear how
| terse Sully is to avoid a conversation with ATC while he's
| busy flying.
|
| 2) You may be asked for a written letter afterwards, or an
| investigation may start. Your airline would be interested.
|
| 3) ATC is not responsible for your plane, and cannot fly it
| for you. Most ATC don't even have an airplane rating.
|
| Pilots have a "get out of jail free card" by filing a NASA
| report for non-intentional violations. You can search that
| database.
|
| I filed one once when I was flying an old rental with sketchy
| navigation equipment into Class B just in case the gauges
| were out of tolerance.
|
| Source: commerically-rated pilot.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Not long ago, an airplane rained down a few parts near Denver.
| Today an aircraft has a similar thing happen.
|
| Is it possible that airplanes that have been grounded for a long
| time thanks to the pandemic have not received the care they
| should have?
|
| The two aircraft did not have the same cause and I think
| different parts came lose but one of the results were similar.
| And somewhat close together
| throwaway189262 wrote:
| It might be that Denver has more frequent failure. Takeoff
| power is scaled by temp, altitude, and cargo weight.
|
| Denver is high altitude. And a hub with lots of long range
| flights. The plane was going to Hawaii. I bet plane was heavy
| with engines near full power. Most likely time for engine
| explodey
| just_steve_h wrote:
| I worked at a Large Internet Infrastructure Company for a long
| time, and saw software development practices that made my hair
| curl. All I could think was, "Gee, I'm glad we're not working on
| aviation software!"
|
| Seriously, though: software "engineering" could actually earn the
| name, if we had rigorous professional standards, regulatory
| oversight, and product liability.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| There have been attempts (the "Keep the Space Shuttle Flying"
| method):
| https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/ec2e767e593953...
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| One thing that sets software apart from other engineering
| disciplines is that they are grounded in physics (bits running
| on a semiconductor doesn't matter for this discussion) and have
| been around (in some form) for thousands of years. How do we
| know if a design is sound? We can check it by doing the math.
| How do we know if a program is sound (what does that even mean?
| There's our first problem)? Well, we rely on a large compendium
| of heuristics that are based on nothing but experiences
| compiled over the past ~60 years. Also, that compendium is
| constantly being added to. Also, virtually everyone disagrees
| on what should/shouldn't be in this compendium.
| just_steve_h wrote:
| I'm wading into waters that are way over my head here, but my
| understanding is that it is possible for software to be
| provably correct, in the mathematical sense of "proof."
|
| I'm well aware of the admixture of folklore, experience, and
| caffeine-fueled inspiration that constitutes much of the
| software that runs our world.
| vvanders wrote:
| Have a peek a metastability[1], any time a digital system
| crosses a clock domain there's basically statistics making
| sure the whole thing doesn't fall over.
|
| From need a better MTBF? Throw a couple more inline flip-
| flops.
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability_(electronics)
| ghaff wrote:
| There's work going on in formal verification but it has
| many limitations.
|
| I'd also point out that in MechE/CivE fields, you're still
| dependent on materials (and maintenance) working as
| advertised. It's also often the case that operating
| conditions just end up being different from what was
| designed for or certain failure modes weren't considered.
| See, e.g. the Citibank Building in NYC http://www.slate.com
| /blogs/the_eye/2014/04/17/the_citicorp_t...
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| I think being able to prove that a program can be correct
| is getting close to P=NP territory.
| Raptor22 wrote:
| It's very difficult but there have been strides in that
| direction: http://web1.cs.columbia.edu/~junfeng/09fa-e699
| 8/papers/sel4....
| aklein wrote:
| Cannot prove some program is correct, in general, because
| that's effectively the halting problem. But in practice
| it is sufficient to enforce (prove) the absence of
| behaviors via constraints like types or contracts.
| rocqua wrote:
| It is possible to prove software adheres to a certain
| specification. This is time consuming, and how feasible it
| is depends a lot on how your specification was written. It
| generally also depends on how your software was written.
|
| The big issue is that writing a useful specification can be
| hard. Especially if you want to also make the specification
| easy to check.
|
| A side issue is that your proof will make assumptions about
| how a computer works that are simplified.
| archi42 wrote:
| Source: I work on static analyzers, so I'm biased to that.
|
| We can not prove _every_ thing, as others pointed out the
| fundamental issue here is the "halting problem". However,
| this doesn't mean we can't prove _any_ thing. Wikipedia
| says:
|
| > In computability theory, Rice's theorem states that all
| non-trivial, semantic properties of programs are
| undecidable.
|
| I often feel like the "trick" is to push the trivial stuff
| to be as useful as possible. You can work from several
| vectors: 1. You build better static analyzers (difficult
| and computationally expensive the further you push it - but
| that's what we're doing) 2. reduce the complexity of the
| "analyzed thing" (high level language, assembly,...) to
| allow for easier analysis, while still being useful (a
| assembly language only supporting 'nop' is trivial to
| analyze, but pretty useless overall; otoh you can disallow
| some constructs in C to make the language easier to
| analyze).
|
| There are of course other forms of "provably correct". E.g.
| programming in a language that has proofs attached to it,
| like coq [which is the name of a proof assistant].
| Disclaimer: I've never used coq myself, but know plenty who
| do. I think that's something that might interest you. [And
| thanks to the genius who christened that tool: No,
| seriously, I'm not trying to be rude!]
|
| [edit] Didn't check that link, but maybe you find it
| interesting https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/sp
| ring13/cos510... There are of course other approaches than
| coq, e.g. Isabelle is often mentioned. See the "See also"
| on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coq
| bluGill wrote:
| You can, but first we need to figure out what correct is in
| the first place. I can prove hello world doesn't overflow
| buffers, but it is a bit harder to prove that my font
| renders the letters vs some random scribbles.
| hu3 wrote:
| General software requirements can change drastically in a short
| period. Heck one of our clients requested major parts of our
| solution to be rebuilt for the third time within 6 months to
| accommodate the whims of their new leadership.
|
| You don't see that happening with aviation software where
| requirements are set in stone.
| starpilot wrote:
| So raise the price of the software so that you can afford
| more/better software engineers, to produce a more robust and
| flexible project. Then it'll be aerospace quality, aerospace
| costs.
| hu3 wrote:
| So your solution is to charge more and throw more engineers
| at the problem? Sounds like one of my ex-bosses.
|
| Apple does that and they couldn't be further apart from
| aerospace engineering quality. Their software and hardware
| has been historically littered with problems and bugs.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Exists for these reasons secure coding standards, MISRA and
| BARR and others. If we had same restrictions as other
| engineering profession maybe we still use COBOL. In important
| places with big safety concern we follow better guidelines, in
| webshit front end are do more, not so much concern with a
| mistaking. This is the best way, the allow of breaking in
| unimportant but make rule in important.
| starpilot wrote:
| You just don't need that in software when most of the industry
| is low consequence. It's only losing money at most tech
| companies, not killing your coworkers. This hasn't happened to
| me personally, but it's not cool when Rob the test pilot, whose
| family you've hung out with and that you've gone on hikes with,
| literally dies next day in a fiery crash. But that's the risk
| any test pilot accepts.
| just_steve_h wrote:
| That's the excuse I keep heading. Then, I find out that the
| "low consequence" software I've worked on is being relied
| upon in very consequential contexts.
|
| Can I tell your customers that the software you're selling
| them is only built for "low consequence" applications?
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| > The aircraft returned to Denver for a safe landing on runway 26
| about 23 minutes after departure. The aircraft stopped on the
| runway for a check by emergency services. Emergency services
| advised of an active fire within the right hand engine and
| extinguished the fire a few minutes later.
| integrate-this wrote:
| I'm starting to feel bad for Boeing.
| cracker_jacks wrote:
| Wake up, Donnie.
| mat_0 wrote:
| =:p (Ascii is hard)
| just_steve_h wrote:
| Simon (the founder & proprietor of The Aviation Herald) is an
| incredible force for good in the world. His work on that site,
| for well over a decade now, is legendary.
| hu3 wrote:
| Fun fact: the response header [1] of that website suggests it
| is powered by Apache and Perl. Which is amazing in itself. And
| it's still responsive despite being #1 on HN.
|
| [1] Apache/2.2.17 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.17 OpenSSL/1.0.2r
| mod_perl/2.0.4 Perl/v5.10.0
| tantalor wrote:
| Why is that suprising? Serving static content is easy
| EvangelicalPig wrote:
| I mean. How much is classic Perl used in web applications
| these days?
| tantalor wrote:
| 0.1%, not much!
|
| https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_lan
| gua...
|
| But concatenating strings together is the same in any
| language, right?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| ...and yet, very rarely done. That the correct technology
| for a news site (static content) was done, is the
| surprising part.
| dirkt wrote:
| It would also be the correct technology for most sites -
| you don't need fancy Javascript for just the contents.
|
| Navigation, ads, etc., maybe, but not the contents
| itself. Most webpages could be perfectly useful with
| Javascript completely disabled.
|
| Sadly, many aren't.
| tantalor wrote:
| Fancy JavaScript has nothing to do with serving static
| content. JavaScript itself is (or should be) static
| content anyway.
|
| If you're talking about using JS to load content on page
| load, for whatever reason, that async content can also be
| static. For example some sites use the URL fragment (hash
| parameter) to load content, but the server does not
| receive this:
|
| _The fragment identifier functions differently to the
| rest of the URI: its processing is exclusively client-
| sided with no participation from the web server_ -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_fragment
| ortusdux wrote:
| I have wondered in the past if the benefits of a 'jettison
| damaged engine' feature would outweigh the risks.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I suspect most airframes dont have sufficient spare strength to
| handle the imbalanced forces of an engine on one wing but not
| the other during flight.
| [deleted]
| just_steve_h wrote:
| It's unclear what benefit there would be. On the other hand,
| instantly changing the balance of the aircraft by jettisoning a
| large mass from one wing would almost certainly make the
| aircraft uncontrollable.
|
| An American Airlines DC-10 crashed after takeoff from Chicago
| in 1979 (?), after one engine separated from the wing. At the
| time, it was the deadliest crash in the US.
| danaliv wrote:
| The loss of control in that accident was caused by slat
| asymmetry. Removing an engine, by itself, wouldn't be enough
| to induce loss of control.
| danaliv wrote:
| I'm trying to imagine a scenario where that would be
| beneficial. Maybe uncommanded thrust reverser deployment.
| Although I think in that case it's likely to "self-jettison"
| anyway!
| geff82 wrote:
| Pilot here. You always want to keep the engine for the reason
| of weight and balance and aerodynamical integrity.
| yread wrote:
| They are mounted using shear pins - so if they somehow
| malfunction so much that they would break the wing, they fall
| off instead. Self-jettisoning if you want. Here are some
| examples
|
| https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24935/have-jet-...
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| The dangerous bit is the fuel - and that can be cut off from
| the engine and/or jettisoned.
| haunter wrote:
| Recording of the ATC
| https://twitter.com/ryancaustin1/status/1363236118657957895?...
|
| Video of the flying debris
| https://twitter.com/jacdecnew/status/1363241028690599938?s=2...
| throw0101a wrote:
| Animated recreation with audio:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-zh7Sebr8
|
| * Via: https://forums.liveatc.net/atcaviation-audio-
| clips/ual-328-u...
| bredren wrote:
| How come the discrete audio on 120.15 was not available?
| EE84M3i wrote:
| If anyone else is wondering what ZIMMR means in this context,
| it is a specific feature of the Denver airport: https://ja.fl
| ightaware.com/resources/airport/DEN/DP/ZIMMR+TW...
| repiret wrote:
| A specific location. Waypoints used in IFR approaches are
| given unique, 5-letter, usually pronounceable, names.
| tialaramex wrote:
| As well as being unique they're chosen to avoid similar
| sounding ones being near each other. So KITES and SITES
| might both exist but they'd never be anywhere that you
| could confuse one for the other.
| mannykannot wrote:
| WRT the debris video: personally, I would be paying more
| attention to looking for anything falling in my direction. The
| debris may flutter like falling paper, but they are much more
| substantial.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Those are heavy objects falling onto a kids soccer field and
| nobody yells "HEADS UP!", "FORE!" or "RUN FOR COVER!". How
| considerate.
| dralley wrote:
| It looks like they've got plenty of time to move out of the
| way.
| jabl wrote:
| I'd guess looking upwards at some awkward shaped objects
| falling down, it's not easy to guess where they will come
| down.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If this ever happens to you and it seems like the falling
| object is not moving in your field of view: run away at a
| 90 degree angle.
| thiagocsf wrote:
| The right engine was out and the pilot chose to do a left turn.
| Is the choice related?
| iawix wrote:
| It's good airmanship to turn into your "good" engine.
| jabl wrote:
| Why? Surely it's easier to turn the other way? Then again,
| it's not a dogfight, so maybe less chance of losing control
| if turning into the working engine?
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > Surely it's easier to turn the other way?
|
| That's exactly why. Because then it helps you getting out
| of your turn, instead of fighting against it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Because you may not be able to get out of your turn that
| way. The aircraft 'wants' to turn over the bad engine so
| you could easily get caught in a feed-forward situation.
| dzonga wrote:
| less than 30 days ago. I made a comment[0] here on HN that Boeing
| planes safety records make your bowels shift, if you look up
| their safety records before you fly. glad everyone on that flight
| was safe. but yeah airlines need to have a disclaimer when you
| fly certain planes.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25904047
| cranekam wrote:
| In that comment you assert 777s "break in half". Where did you
| get this from? There has been 8 hull losses and only one "broke
| in half" (Asiana) after it was basically flown into the ground.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#777-200ER
|
| Your comment, which implies the 777 is unsafe, is nonsense. The
| 777 has a great record.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Other discussion, ostensibly by professional pilots
|
| https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/638797-united-b777-uncon...
| emmanueloga_ wrote:
| "the right hand engine's (PW4077) inlet separated associated with
| the failure of the engine."
|
| This description is rather nonchalant but how can this possibly
| happen!? May this be related to the age of the aircraft?
|
| "Ground observers reported hearing the sound of an explosion like
| bang, smoke and saw the debris falling down."
|
| I mean, an engine about to explode sounds like the kind of thing
| that a routine pre-flight inspection should be able to catch...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Failures happen. So do mistakes. We design planes to be
| resistant as a result.
|
| There are many engine issues that would not be visually
| apparent. Metal fatigue in the turbine blades, a bolt that's
| the wrong size for its hole. Aviation has seen it all.
| terramex wrote:
| It looks like of of the fan blades detached and ripped cowling
| off. Such engine defects are usually not detectable during
| routine pre-flight inspection, for that you need to disassemble
| whole engine, check bearings, do x-ray inspection of turbine to
| look for metal fatigue or micro cracks etc.
|
| Two years ago there was very similar incident, also Boeing 777
| with PW4000 engine: http://aerossurance.com/safety-
| management/ndi-failures-b777-...
| markdown wrote:
| Lots of passenger planes have been flightless for months as a
| result of travel restrictions.
|
| It would be interesting to see how long this particular bird
| has been sitting on the ground.
| easton wrote:
| It has not been grounded. The last flight was earlier this
| morning from Chicago (ORD) to Denver.
|
| https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N772UA
| pwc wrote:
| It is an interesting question. According to AVHerald the tail
| number for this plane is N772UA:
|
| https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n772ua
|
| ... so it looks like it's been flying at least for the last
| week.
| funkaster wrote:
| liveatc recording:
| https://forums.liveatc.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1...
| terramex wrote:
| Almost identical incident happened 3 years ago - the same type
| (B777-200), the same engine (PW4077), the same operator (United
| Airlines), the same side (right engine), the same failure
| (unconfined engine failure).
|
| https://avherald.com/h?article=4b4e8ca7&opt=0
|
| I would not be surprised if the whole fleet of this type/engine
| gets grounded for some time.
| guidedlight wrote:
| The failure was blamed on lack of training for inspectors.
| acvny wrote:
| Also, the same destination: Honolulu. And only 1 digit
| difference in registration number (N773UA in 2018 vs N772UA in
| 2021).
| acvny wrote:
| Must be a bad batch. Please return by post with batch number
| visible for a refund and let us know what you didn't like
| about the product
| pdonis wrote:
| From the report on the previous incident (Feb 2018), it looks
| like NTSB determined that the root cause was a cracked fan
| blade in the engine that should have been spotted on a previous
| inspection but wasn't. That doesn't just implicate this
| type/engine; it implicates the inspection procedures in
| general.
| thgaway17 wrote:
| It was a bird strike.
| leesalminen wrote:
| And I'm supposed to fly on a 777-200 to Denver operated by
| United in just a few days. Yay!
| reddotX wrote:
| good luck!
| valuearb wrote:
| The 777 has been flying for 25 years with almost no fatal
| accidents. Unless your flight will be flying over Russian
| anti-aircraft missile batteries or through a wormhole above
| Malaysia, you should be perfectly safe.
| codingdave wrote:
| Another way of looking at it is that after flying and
| accumulating 25 years of wear and tear without major
| incident, we now have seen a repeatable flaw that these
| aircraft may encounter due to their age.
| hazeii wrote:
| Engines are separate from the airframe; on big commercial
| aircraft the engines get swapped/moved around all the
| time (the engines may well be on lease, separate to the
| lease on the airframe). Thus, in this sort of situation
| it's the engine's history that'll be important, rather
| than the airframes.
| danaliv wrote:
| Until the NTSB investigates, there's no way to know
| whether age has anything to do with it. It might. It
| might not. There could be a common cause, or there isn't.
|
| We don't know yet.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > these aircraft may encounter due to their age
|
| Unlike some codebases, aircrafts actually have mandated
| maintenance. Which is why most accidents are due to human
| error and not massive technical failures.
| eru wrote:
| And often pretty silly and stupid human errors.
|
| (That's a feature, not a bug! The pervasive checklists
| and general professionalism mean that most 'normal' human
| errors are recovered from without enough consequences to
| make it into the news.
|
| So only the really unlucky and incompetent are what we
| usually hear about.)
| ajarmst wrote:
| As well as two demonstrations that the aircraft meets the
| design specification that even a catastrophic failure in
| the worst stage of flight is easily recoverable. I'd
| expect an increased inspection rate, possibly some new
| mandated ND testing for fractures and discontinuities
| (the last one was an LP shaft failure, IIRC).
|
| One thing that does bug me, though is that we now have
| two events where the shroud was lost. Were these
| _uncontained_ failures (problematic because of potential
| for wing damage) or contained faiLures followed by
| aerodynamic shedding of the damaged shroud (system
| functioning as designed). I 'm also somewhat concerned
| about the fire remaining in the burner stage. Might have
| just been lubricants, but I'd want to make sure the fire
| handle had been pulled and investigate whether it worked
| correctly.
| dognotdog wrote:
| It looks it's the "cowling" that was lost, not the
| protective shroud / containment around the fan (and the
| rest of the engine) that keeps the fan/compressor/turbine
| blades from becoming high speed radial projectiles when
| they break off at full speed.
| ajarmst wrote:
| Agreed. The last one was pretty clearly a failure of a
| shaft or turbine, and the damage was much more obvious.
| This might be something completely different.
| interestica wrote:
| > As well as two demonstrations that the aircraft meets
| the design specification that even a catastrophic failure
| in the worst stage of flight is easily recoverable.
|
| But in that type of failure, you can't control where the
| pieces go.
|
| https://abc7ny.com/philadelphia-emergency-landing-
| southwest-...
|
| It resulted in depressurization and partial
| ejection/death.
| kortilla wrote:
| That's a different type of failure. Uncontained vs
| contained.
| interestica wrote:
| Kinda. While the 2018 incident was "contained", it still
| resulted in damage to the fuselage.
|
| "Two small punctures were found in the right side
| fuselage just below the window belt with material
| transfer consistent with impact from pieces of an engine
| fan blade"
|
| (From the link in parent to this thread
| https://avherald.com/h?article=4b4e8ca7&opt=0)
| ajarmst wrote:
| Not 'kinda'. Debris exiting the engine housing with
| sufficient energy and in a direction that leads to damage
| of other systems is the literal definition of an
| unconfined engine failure (i.e. it can spit as many parts
| as it wants to out the exhaust). There is a band of
| armour around the plane of the fans that should prevent
| any blades leaving the engine perpendicularly. If there
| was fuselage or wing damage from debris, that was an
| unconfined failure and would require investigation as a
| major fault.
|
| However, loss of the shroud doesn't necessarily imply
| there was a confinement failure. Damage to the shroud
| during the event can easily lead to the cowling shedding
| aerodynamically, which is also part of the design: the
| last thing you need is more drag on the dead engine side.
| We can't tell which that was in this case, but it's
| important that we do---the design criteria specifying
| that the aircraft can be safely recovered from a
| catastrophic single engine failure during any stage of
| flight would assume the failure is confined to the
| engine.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Engine age isn't the same as airframe age, and components
| don't age linearly with calendar time; they age with
| flight hours or pressurization cycles. Without access to
| a log book, it's impossible to know how old an engine is
| or when it was last overhauled.
| bluGill wrote:
| That isn't completely true. We don't know exactly, but
| the documented time between overhaul and the life of the
| airframe place upper bounds on those.
|
| Some cheap airlines might ignore those rules, but none in
| the US. (Only the poorest, most corrup, countires in the
| world will ignore those limits)
| ralph84 wrote:
| Indeed, for a 25-year-old airframe with the utilization
| it would have at a major carrier like United there's
| basically no way the engines hanging on it now could be
| the same engines it was delivered with.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Aircraft undergo regular preventative maintenance checks,
| with letter codes A - D. The D check being the most
| comprehensive, it occurs every 6-10 years and basically
| the entire aircraft is taken apart and inspected, looking
| for among other things anything like stress fractures,
| corrosion, unusual wear, etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks
| #D_...
|
| A commercial aircraft does not just accumulate wear and
| tear for 25 years until something breaks. They can
| basically fly indefinitely, but in reality after two or
| three D checks they are usually retired because the cost
| of the D check is more than the value of the aircraft.
| touisteur wrote:
| Beware of the dangers of preventative maintenance, where
| sometimes while replacing or inspecting or re-mounting
| inspected parts, the maintenance crew breaks something
| that was OK and probably going to be working fine for
| years.
|
| But yeah, a D check is so expensive I've heard there's a
| habit of dumping the aircraft on less observing flying
| companies some thousand miles before it comes up...
| Leherenn wrote:
| A minor point, it's not based on miles, but cycles
| (takeoffs/landings) for structural parts or hours for
| engines.
| touisteur wrote:
| You're right, thanks for the correction.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Aircraft undergo regular preventative maintenance
| checks_
|
| And in a similar incident in February 2018 on a 777
| (referred to upthread), one of those checks was found to
| have failed: the NTSB determined that the root cause was
| a cracked engine fan blade that should have been detected
| on a previous inspection (and that would have resulted in
| the blade being replaced), but wasn't. If this incident
| turns out to have a similar root cause, that means there
| are issues with the preventive inspection and maintenance
| process.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > basically the entire aircraft is taken apart
|
| How is that safe unless you've got a production line
| doing it? Seems impossible to re-assemble it in the same
| way as it was done in factory...
| donarb wrote:
| It's not taken totally apart, but it is stripped of the
| interior down to the bare metal, all wiring is
| checked/replaced as needed. All mechanical parts like the
| flaps and landing gear are removed and checked for wear.
| The skin is checked for cracks. This is done every 5
| years for planes, taking about 5-6 weeks to complete.
|
| Here's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLil1MZmchI
| ghotli wrote:
| Great context. I gained a lot of respect for aviation's
| use of checklists and procedures from the book 'The
| Checklist Manifesto'
|
| In this case, something obviously went awry and it's both
| engineering, planning, and a miracle no one died or was
| crushed from debris from above. Regardless, comments like
| yours leave me feeling far more confident in this sort of
| thing.
| eru wrote:
| > In this case, something obviously went awry and it's
| both engineering, planning, and a miracle no one died or
| was crushed from debris from above. [...]
|
| Yes, though even something going wrong doesn't
| necessarily mean that we'd need to change any procedures.
|
| Sensible procedures bring risks down to acceptable levels
| at an acceptable price. That level of risk is generally
| still more than 0%.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> a repeatable flaw that these aircraft may encounter
| due to their age.
|
| There are hundreds of flaws. Aircraft are not perfect.
| Any large airframe sees lots of little things break every
| year. That's what inspections and maintenance are for.
| But the system is designed so that such things never add
| up into something really bad. Be worried about the
| aircraft without flaws. To me, that means it either never
| gets used or isn't being inspected properly.
| StopHammoTime wrote:
| Or also if your pilots have just finished their type rating
| and used to fly A320s. Hopefully they remember that you
| actually need to manage your throttle on a Boeing!
| jey wrote:
| Which incident are you referencing here?
| nirguzam wrote:
| Are you suggesting that there's a germane difference
| between the fly-by-wire FADECs on these two aircraft
| types?
| alamortsubite wrote:
| If you're riding in an automobile to/from the airport, you
| have reasonable cause for concern.
| leetrout wrote:
| And you have nothing to worry about. Statistically you really
| have nothing to worry about given this incident happening
| today.
|
| Enjoy your flight and enjoy Denver. Get a donut from Voodoo
| for me.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Well, wouldn't be surprised if the aircraft is literally this
| one, and you'll now fly on a different one.
| jfk13 wrote:
| At least it's unlikely to be _that_ 777-200.
| viraptor wrote:
| That specific plane will go through a lot of rebuilding,
| checks, thorough investigation, etc. Given a choice, I'd
| take that plane over another one.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Yeah but not if they rush the rebuilding and complete it
| in a few days. I suspect that's gonna require too much
| duct tape and bubble gum.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Assuming there's no damage to the airframe itself, it
| could be back in the air pretty quickly. Changing the
| engine is a fairly routine procedure, which takes about a
| day:
|
| https://blog.virginatlantic.com/change-aircraft-engine/
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Look on the bright side - you're probably more likely to die
| from catching COVID-19 from another person on the flight.
| tekromancr wrote:
| Not sure which is the worse way to go. 3-8 mins of flaming,
| falling terror; or weeks of facing potential death in a
| hospital
| djmips wrote:
| 2020: (JAL 777 same engine)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_IAKCBTxc&t=10s
|
| 2018: United 777 same PW engine (seems very similar but without
| fire) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_IAKCBTxc&t=10s
|
| 2016: KAL 777 same PW engines (aborted takeoff after engine
| failure) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bHrW_34kAk
|
| All planes had zero casualties.
| Kye wrote:
| If I were an airline's insurer, I wouldn't want to gamble on
| the good luck lasting.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Not luck. Design. These failures are anticipated. That they
| can be handled so well is testimony to the energy and
| regulation put into engine safety over decades. Whereas
| once such failures could down an airline, killing all on
| board, they can now be handled safely.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> These failures are anticipated_
|
| Sort of. The possibility of some types of failure is
| anticipated in the design of other parts of the engine.
| But there are also inspection procedures in place to
| ensure that engine parts that might fail are replaced
| before they fail. A report on a previous incident in Feb
| 2018 (referred to upthread) says that the root cause was
| a cracked engine fan blade that should have been detected
| on a previous inspection but wasn't. Failures that are
| supposed to be prevented by inspection and replacement of
| parts are not necessarily also allowed for in other parts
| of the design. So it's quite possible that luck is
| involved here as well and that a future failure of this
| type could have much worse consequences.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| fan blade failures are expected. Engines are designed to
| contain failed blades. There is a huge test that is done
| whereby a blade is "failed" at full throttle. Engine dies
| but damage is to be contained.
|
| https://youtu.be/j973645y5AA
|
| (A380 "blade off" test, rare footage of giant engine
| failing)
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| How do you safely handle the debris falling to the
| ground?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| You dont. A few pounds of engine parts is infinitely
| better than the previous option, many tons of airliner
| falling on a house.
| wavefunction wrote:
| @sandworm How about a third option where neither the
| plane nor the debris falls?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The risk of falling debris actually killing someone pales
| in comparison to the risks of it perhaps doing more
| damage onboard the aircraft. A loose part near/inside an
| engine is no longer doing its job and could cause more
| damage where it is. And the ground is a big place. Drop a
| random pin in google maps. Then zoom in to see if it is
| actually on someone's head. This is lottery odds
| territory.
|
| Objects drop from aircraft all the time, daily. It isn't
| generally newsworthy unless part of a larger story. And
| even then, only if the object is found and recognized as
| being from an aircraft. Small rocks also fall daily from
| space, probably more by weight than aircraft-related
| objects, yet virtually nobody ever gets hit by space
| rocks.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| To add to that, 100 tons of spacerocks hit eath every
| day. I dont think 100 tons of parts fall of airliners
| daily.
|
| That being said, there was a russian spacecraft that
| disintegrated and hit someone house, in the middle of
| siberia bo less. So it does happen, but its freak ecen3ts
| territory.
| airhead969 wrote:
| False equivalency. 100 T of diffuse material reaching
| Earth, likely burning up, isn't the same as or even
| remotely comparable to parts falling off aircraft due to
| man-made negligence. Jettisoning honeycomb cowling
| sections because a particular model of engine is
| relatively unreliable, through design, manufacturing, or
| maintenance, isn't an excuse for not fixing it or not
| using a better engine if it cannot be fixed economically.
|
| Could you proofread and type correctly so we understand
| what you're saying? I can't read all of what you're
| saying.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Oh, if you are going to include manmade space-related
| objects there have been many deaths. Dig into how many
| Chinese rocket stages have landed on villages. If we
| include such things as "aviation" I would retract my
| above statements re debris. Rockets do sometimes fall on
| people.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/china-keeps-
| dropping...
|
| "It has happened many times before, including most
| infamously in 1996 when a Long March 3B rocket veered off
| course shortly after a launch and crashed into a village.
| Chinese officials reported six dead from the accident,
| although Western sources have speculated that hundreds of
| Chinese citizens may have died in the accident."
| o-__-o wrote:
| Why compare two sovereign nations with vastly different
| safety regulations?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I didnt. I only said that rockets sometime crash on
| people and gave an example. Nobody is comparing countries
| in this thread. Aviation is about as international as any
| industry can be.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I'm sure people PW is working on that, but the failure
| rates on commercial aircraft parts are already
| ridiculously low. Bad things will always happen.
| airhead969 wrote:
| "Bad things will always happen" is a despicable shrug
| mentality. Bad things happen when people don't have their
| acts together in design, engineering, manufacturing,
| maintenance, and operation. The failure rates should be
| striving for zero, unlike the stunts Boeing has pulled on
| 737NG, MAX, and the 787.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Totally agree with you on the recent laxness in design
| and the regulatory capture that allowed it. But treating
| zero as a feasible goal is unrealistic. I've done code
| inspections for safety of flight code and making sure you
| have 100% coverage and branch coverage not just in the
| high level code but in assembler still doesn't get
| everything. You try to make sure that redundancy saves
| you (seriously boeing!) But common mode errors and just
| human fallibility to see all the possibilities mean we
| miss stuff. And all this is so much easier in software
| than in mechanical designs where redundancy sometimes
| just isn't doable. We shouldn't give up best practices,
| but we shouldn't have unreasonable expectations of them
| either. And not every engineering failure implies a
| failure in engineering process.
| airhead969 wrote:
| I never said it was feasible, you did. It must be strived
| for, because that's the difference between excellence and
| crap.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I wanted to clarify my last statement. Even when best
| practices are followed bad stuff happens, and that
| doesn't necessarily mean best practices need to change.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Of course not. Make improvements rather than knowingly
| shove-in bad Ducommun parts on the line or crappy MCAS.
| Also, hold manufacturers responsible when they take cost-
| shortcuts, sacrifice safety, and kill people. Boeing
| routinely gets a slap for doing so since it's also
| considered a strategic defense contractor, part of the
| MIC that greases palms in DC.
| frogpelt wrote:
| You posted the same link twice.
| tim333 wrote:
| I guess the 2020 JAL one could be
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2ZJjYQj2bY
|
| There's some good video off the current one on the BBC site
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56141673
| hazeii wrote:
| I thought it was 'confined' if the containment ring did its
| job? If it had failed (like not supposed to) it would have been
| a whole lot worse.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The plane landed and didn't blast enormous holes with ejected
| compressor blades. That's a successful failure.
| underseacables wrote:
| Is that what happenes when The fan blades fly off and hit
| the airplane?
| touisteur wrote:
| Ugh look up QF-72 for an A380 Rolls-Royce engine
| containment failure...
| martyvis wrote:
| QF-32. (BTW the pilot Richard Champion de Crespigny wrote
| a fantastic book on the incident. The intensity of going
| though procedures on an iPad and manuals as alarms were
| going off, while remembering to just fly the plane, was
| the thing that most sticks in my mind.
| touisteur wrote:
| Sorry, right, always mixing up those two. Best lessons
| from the book for me are:
|
| 1- meet the designers, understand the "why"s and not only
| the descriptive posthoc documentation
|
| 2- when you don't trust your instruments, keep following
| the procedures, checklists, (for this you need an
| excellent, trained, cold-headed team), and eventually try
| to reconstruct 'what aircraft you have'
|
| 3- trust the automated checklists but not too much!
| Crosscheck what's asked of you, with what you know of the
| aircraft. Since you know the 'why's you know the
| automated checklist system's designers probably never
| expected an aircraft with that much damage to keep
| flying...
|
| 4- there are no hall-passes for heroes. At the end De
| Crespigny fails his evaluation (the flight was an
| evaluation flight, with an instructor on board).
|
| All around a great, great book for systems people.
| mcdevilkiller wrote:
| Are you sure? That was an A330, and a failure on one
| ADIRU.
| touisteur wrote:
| Aaaaaah always mixing this and QF-32 :-( sorry. The book
| by Richard de Crespigny is a must read if you can find
| it. Great.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Pieces on the inside of jet engines are spinning between
| 2,000 and 12,000 rpm. They should all be properly
| contained in an airliner, but before that was the case of
| one fan blade broke and hit the plane it could look like
| a bomb blew an enormous hole in the side of the plane.
| These small pieces have a huge kinetic energy because
| they're spinning so fast.
|
| Nothing bad happening, everyone uninjured and a plane
| making an orderly airport emergency landing is many
| layers of safety systems all working properly.
| kyshoc wrote:
| That's almost exactly what happened on Southwest 1380[0]
| a few years ago.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Fli
| ght_1380
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| To add to the topic, aircraft structure and systems are
| made to withstand the projection of those debris hitting
| with "infitite" energy. That means for every trajectory
| possible, it's considered that a part flies through
| everything in its path. The aircraft still has to land.
| o-__-o wrote:
| The wing is an exceptionally strong component of the
| aircraft. It's usually the freak accidents where you hear
| of a fuel tank being ruptured or control or hydraulic
| lines being cut. In all of these accidents I bet there is
| wing damage but the plane is able to continue as usual
|
| WW2 fighter planes anyone?
| lm28469 wrote:
| Most of the "skin" of a plane is only a few mm thick [0]
| it doesn't take much to puncture, I mean, it does, but
| thin turbine blades made to resist birds impact at 10k
| rpm would cut through it like butter.
|
| [0]
| https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/45566/how-
| thick...
| hazeii wrote:
| As ever, more detail and clear explanations on pprune[0].
|
| As one commenter put it, to an ER doctor this is a
| shallow wound with lots of blood.
|
| [0] https://www.pprune.org/rumours-
| news/638797-united-b777-uncon...
| hazeii wrote:
| Plenty of youtube videos of a blade-off test - here's a
| short one [0] of an A380 Rolls Royce engine testing. That's
| about PS9,000,000 of engine being destroyed in this
| (successful) test.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-8_Gnbp2JA
| dtgriscom wrote:
| At the beginning of the video the blades seem to be
| spinning at about 2RPS, but after the explosion they're
| spinning much faster. I presume the former was an
| artifact of the camera's frame rate.
| hazeii wrote:
| They normally have high-speed cameras running; that short
| video is a mish-mash of super-slow-mo and regular speed
| footage. There are much longer versions on YT, e.g. this
| one [0] which covers it in more detail (watch the people
| in the room jump when it blows - despite being a fair
| distance away).
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j973645y5AA
| implements wrote:
| That's my understanding - "confined" meaning nothing flying
| tangentially away from the engine and hitting the fuselage or
| wing.
|
| Saying that, resultant vibration causing the inlet and
| nacelle cowling to separate isn't supposed to happen either -
| because of the serious risk to the tail.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Animated recreation with ATC audio of that flight (UA1175):
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-_IAKCBTxc
|
| Animated recreation with audio of this one (UA328):
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-zh7Sebr8
|
| * Via: https://forums.liveatc.net/atcaviation-audio-
| clips/ual-328-u...
| nradov wrote:
| Korean Air had an incident in 2016 where a PW4000 on a Boeing
| 777 disintegrated during takeoff.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_2708?wprov=s...
| IndySun wrote:
| So, large, popular, commercial airplanes, are passing their
| mandatory and thorough pre-flight safe-to-fly inspections, but
| then having catastrophic failures within minutes of take off.
|
| It must mean that pre-flight inspections (to quote George Carlin)
| an illusion of safety? ie Not fit for purpose.
| soheil wrote:
| I like how people are just standing next to pieces of plane and
| playing soccer in the background, going like just another day
| with pieces of plane falling out of sky [0]
|
| [0]
| https://avherald.com/img/united_b772_n772ua_denver_210220_3....
| Aperocky wrote:
| Well once they've already fallen there's not much more to it..
| It's not like it's a continuous stream of debris coming from
| somewhere. But it does look dangerous when it would have first
| fell though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Better than that they move the pieces. Finding the pieces in
| their exact location + weather pattern can give important clues
| as to the reason why this happened in the first place.
| rossjudson wrote:
| You should see the accident from the day before:
| https://avherald.com/h?article=4e35302b&opt=0
|
| The plane began to "distribute engine parts". The pictures show
| us just how impressive the distribution was.
| ledauphin wrote:
| same day, actually - this was only about 8 hours ago.
| sydney6 wrote:
| Oddly enough, something similar happened today just a few
| kilometers from where i live.
|
| https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/longtail-aviation/boeing-...
| ledauphin wrote:
| today was quite weird for Boeing airplanes, as well as for
| United. United Flight 1832 (a 737-8) from Cancun to Houston had
| a single engine shutdown on the way and had to divert to New
| Orleans.
| TangoFox wrote:
| I'm an Air Traffic Controller at Houston Center, and a
| regular user of this website. Today I was the Radar Associate
| controller in the Ocean West sector when that aircraft flew
| through.
|
| The Radar Associate works alongside the Radar Controller, and
| performs coordinations and other actions to assist the Radar
| Controller. It is the Radar Controller who talks with the
| aircraft on frequency.
|
| In the Ocean West sector, the Radar Associate controller
| coordinates with Mexico's Air Traffic Controllers to
| determine safe routes, altitudes, and crossing times at the
| FIR boundary, as well as pass along any other pertinent
| information.
|
| I won't answer any questions about today's event here, but if
| anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask. I will also
| double-check the FAA's social media guidelines when I go back
| to work tomorrow. So, if I don't answer your question today,
| please check tomorrow.
|
| TF or "Tango Foxtrot" are my operating initials - something
| which every Air Traffic Controller has and is unique per
| facility. We use our operating initials to identify ourselves
| when we perform coordinations via the landline.
|
| I was also a Radar Associate controller at HCF Center (in
| Hawaii) for United Flight 1175, a Boeing 777, from San
| Fransisco to Honolulu when it lost its engine cowling back in
| 2018.
|
| The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those
| of FAA.
| ledauphin wrote:
| Actually, one thing I was wondering after I got the alert
| about the 7700 (via flightradar24) - is there anything I'm
| missing in terms of a reasonably reliable way to figure out
| what Center frequency a given airplane is currently
| communicating on, when not low enough to be talking to
| Approach? I'm assuming there isn't, because handoffs from
| departure seem to vary frequencies when I fly.
| TangoFox wrote:
| You would need charts that show the different sector
| boundaries and their altitude or flight level stratums.
| Sectors can be combined, so you might be given a
| different frequency in the same area at different times
| of the day and/or days of the week.
|
| With Approach, sector boundaries can also change
| depending on which runway(s) they're landing.
|
| You could potentially call up the facility and ask for
| copies of the sector charts, but I don't know what kind
| of response you will get.
|
| Right now due to COVID-19, facility tours are not
| allowed, otherwise you could see ATC in-person and ask to
| take a look at their charts then, as well as ask the
| Controllers any questions, workload-permitting.
|
| The facilities that I've worked at (HCF Center and
| Houston Center) have been happy to give tours, but they
| have to be during normal business hours, and you have to
| be a United States citizen. For a tour, I suggest
| organizing a group of pilots or others interested in
| aviation, rather than just going by yourself.
|
| The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily
| those of the FAA.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Is RADAR Controller the senior position and RADAR Associate
| the junior position? That is, does one normally progress
| from Associate to Controller? How long does it take to
| progress from one to the next? Is it common/expected for
| people in your position to move to different airports?
| [deleted]
| TangoFox wrote:
| Radar Controllers and Radar Associates are just staffing
| positions.
|
| Some background information to build on...
|
| An Air Traffic Controller's job title when they start out
| is Air Traffic Control Specialist. An Air Traffic Control
| Specialist starts out in the AG pay band (Academy
| Graduate). When that Controller gets certifications, they
| move up to the D1 pay band (Developmental), then to D2,
| D3, and when they get all of their certifications or
| "fully certify", they end in the CPC pay band and their
| job title changes to Certified Professional Controller.
|
| The Radar Controller position is also called the R-side,
| and the Radar Associate position is also called the
| D-side. A trainee needs to certify on all of their
| D-sides before they start training on their R-sides.
|
| So basically the answer to your first two questions is
| "yes". However there can be a more experienced controller
| working the D-side while a new controller is working the
| R-side. The Air Traffic Controllers rotate through the
| different positions throughout the day. It is based on
| when someone arrives for their shift, or comes back to
| the control room from their break, they check with the
| controller that has been on a position the longest, and
| asks that person if they want a break. If not, the
| Controller moves on to the next person who has been
| working the longest, and so forth.
|
| ARTCCs or Air Route Traffic Control Centers or just
| "Centers", are divided into "specialties" (or "areas")
| that controllers are assigned to. Each specialty is
| divided into sectors. At the minimum, each sector needs
| to staffed by a Radar Controller. If the sector is busy
| with a lot of traffic or is complex due to weather
| events, or maybe traffic being rerouted from another
| sector, then a Radar Associate position will be staffed
| at that sector. If traffic is very light, for example in
| the middle of the night, sectors can be combined and one
| Radar Controller will work multiple sectors and talk to
| multiple aircraft on different frequencies.
|
| The time it takes to get certified depends on many
| factors. It could be anywhere from one month, to six
| months. From starting out to get fully certified, can
| take anywhere between two years, to five years. It
| depends on many factors, such as personal ability,
| training opportunities, training backlogs, etc.
|
| It is common for people to switch facilities at least
| once. Some stay at their first facility, some move
| several times. When a Controller graduates from the FAA's
| training facility (that's where "Academy Graduate" comes
| from), they are given a short list of facilities to chose
| from. The list constantly changes based on the FAA's
| staffing needs.
|
| The FAA does do "direct hires" for people with previous
| ATC experience (usually through military) directly into
| certain facilities, but a new hire without experience
| won't know where they'll go when they start out.
|
| The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily
| those of FAA.
| kortilla wrote:
| What expertise is it that ATC folks build up in all of
| those years of training? Is it knowledge of plane
| behavior by model, familiarity with the region, radar
| behavior? Or is the majority of it the less tangible
| "getting a feel for the flow of traffic to instinctively
| pick out unusual behavior"?
| TangoFox wrote:
| (Edit to my parent comment: " It could be anywhere from
| one month, to six months" to certify on a single sector,
| but it's really more like one to three months.)
|
| ---
|
| All of the above.
|
| Whenever an Air Traffic Controller transfers to a new
| facility, or even transfers to a new specialty within a
| facility, they have to train and get certified on all of
| the new sectors. Each sector is different due to traffic
| flow, types of traffic, equipment limitations, etc.
|
| For the Houston Center Ocean specialty, equipment
| familiarization is very important for Controllers. There
| are 5 sectors: Ocean West, Ocean East, Offshore West,
| Offshore Central, and Offshore East. Ocean West and East
| deal primarily with aircraft flying between the United
| States and Mexico. There are different airways that
| aircraft can take, and each one has different
| characteristics (crossing airways, airways defined by
| RNAV fixes vs bearings off of VORTACs, radio coverage,
| and radar coverage).
|
| In the Offshore sectors, radio coverage is harder to
| manage. There are multiple transmitters and receivers
| that are located on different offshore platforms, and the
| ocean elements and weather can affect the equipment. At
| our positions next to the radar scopes, there are
| touchscreens with many different buttons to select which
| frequencies we want to monitor, transmit on, use primary
| or backup sites, etc. Most sectors do not have to toggle
| between different transmitters, but in the Offshore
| sectors, that's a common occurrence. There are also
| different transmitter sites for the Ocean sectors, so we
| commonly get pilots saying that they're losing us on the
| radio when we are talking to another aircraft a hundred
| miles away, and we can hear the pilot just fine.
|
| In the Ocean sectors, radar doesn't cover the middle of
| the Gulf of Mexico, so we have to rely on aircraft
| position reports unless they have ADS-B.
|
| At HCF Center, there are mountains which block radar
| coverage, so it's good to know where we can expect to
| lose or establish radar contact with aircraft.
|
| Yes, there is an element of becoming familiar with the
| routine traffic. You see many of the same flights every
| day, so you know where they are going. It got to the
| point at HCF Center, where if someone told me a flight
| number, I could tell them the departure and destination
| airports without looking.
|
| However, just like pilots, Air Traffic Controllers cannot
| let routine turn into complacency. We can never just
| assume anything, if we are unsure, we have to ask or
| restate something. Safety is our number one priority.
|
| The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily
| those of the FAA.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| wmij wrote:
| Oddly a similar engine incident happened on the same United
| flight route back in 2016. Apparently it was a bird strike back
| then. Link: http://avherald.com/h?article=4999bec5
| whatever1 wrote:
| Maybe a system for emergency detaching of the failed engine with
| a parachute would help aleviate the consequences of flying with a
| uncontrollably vibrating fireball?
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| The system you propose already exists: fuse pins hold the
| nacelle to the wing, and ensure the engine separates cleanly
| from the aircraft if vibrations exceed dangerous levels.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| The kind of incident that happened on this flight is incredibly
| rare, and in fact nobody got hurt. Sadly, while I get where
| you're going, what you propose would almost certainly make
| emergencies more common, not less.
|
| To implement your solution you'd need at least:
|
| - Some kind of mechanical release to let the engine go
|
| - reliable ways to disconnect the electricity, fuel, control,
| hydraulic and other connections without affecting the rest of
| the aircraft when the engine detached
|
| - a parachute with a release mechanism
|
| Each of these mechanisms comes with its own disastrous failure
| case:
|
| - engine mechanically releases when it shouldn't, taking
| everything with it (this has happened [0]), or engine is
| released while still producing thrust despite the fire,
| destroying the wing or tail
|
| - hydraulic or other lines don't release when they should,
| taking everything with it in an otherwise survivable situation
|
| - parachute fails, dropping engine on people, parachute catches
| fire in flight, parachute accidentally deploys in flight...
|
| This is just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many
| other potential problems.
|
| Sometimes the best solution is to work out what happened and
| make it less likely to happen, rather than add stuff to catch
| it after it fails.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191
| _underfl0w_ wrote:
| Oof. I would _not_ want to be the bystander whose house an
| entire engine fell on, even with a parachute haha
| argvargc wrote:
| Reading this, my mind went straight to Donnie Darko
|
| https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/donnie_darko
| mafuy wrote:
| Surely such a system would add more causes of failure than it
| could alleviate. I mean, you literally want to decrease the
| bond between engine and wing.
| dheera wrote:
| Some honest questions here for experts:
|
| 0. Why was the engine flaming in the first video? Why didn't the
| pilots cut fuel to that engine immediately and use the other
| engine to land?
|
| 1. What is the best way to communicate issues to the pilot if
| you're a passenger and see something the pilot can't see? For
| example once I was sitting in the back of the aircraft on Airtran
| and I saw a screw on the jet loosening and almost falling out. I
| told a flight attendant but they were just kind of "Um hmm okay
| thanks for letting us know! Would you like any orange juice?"
| zoomablemind wrote:
| > 1. What is the best way to communicate issues to the pilot if
| you're a passenger and see something the pilot can't see?
|
| Flight attendants is the passengers' interface to the whole
| flight environment. BTW there's seniority rank among the
| attendants too, chain of command, so to speak.
|
| I would think that your observation was likely being noted, not
| sure if relayed to the pilots. Juice is the best option, noone
| needs to have a panic in the cabin.
|
| Did you try to mention that observation again but at the
| arrival, during the "Thank you, good bye!" time? Sometimes you
| may even see the captain there.
|
| P.S. Once, my flight was cancelled (all boarded already)
| because the crew discovered a missing "Exit" sign in the cabin
| and the mechanics at the airport could not find the exact part
| for the plane model. Call this an attention to details!
| portlander52232 wrote:
| Once had a flight delayed for maybe an hour because an
| overhead bin wouldn't close. Mechanic had to tape it shut
| with special FAA duct tape, then sign the tape, then do an
| impressive amount of paperwork right there and then.
| interestica wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster
|
| - 8 January 1989
|
| - The Kegworth air disaster - British Midland Flight 92, a
| Boeing 737-400
|
| - Pilots had an engine issue and shut down the _good_ engine by
| mistake.
|
| > The pilots throttled back the working right engine instead of
| the malfunctioning left engine. They had no way of visually
| checking the engines from the cockpit, and the cabin crew --
| who did not hear the captain refer to the right hand engine in
| his cabin address -- did not inform them that smoke and flames
| had been seen from the left engine.
|
| > Several passengers sitting near the rear of the plane noticed
| smoke and sparks coming from the left engine.
|
| > The pilots mistakenly shut down the functioning engine. They
| selected full thrust from the malfunctioning one and this
| increased its fuel supply, causing it to catch fire. Of the 126
| people aboard, 47 died and 74 sustained serious injuries.
|
| I have no idea what the best way to communicate would be, but
| this is an example of an incident where it could have saved
| lives. It would be good if there was a protocol. (Perhaps
| requiring the captain's address to mention which engine they
| believe has the issue).
| mjg59 wrote:
| Not an expert, but: if there had still been fuel supplied to
| that engine, the fire would have been a lot worse. If you watch
| the video the fire clearly becomes less intense over time, and
| the footage of the landing suggests it's out by then. Remember
| that fuel isn't the only flammable thing there - engines need
| oil for lubrication, and in combination with whatever residual
| fuel was in the system and potentially sprayed everywhere, it's
| not surprising that you'd have enough to burn for a short time.
| iawix wrote:
| 0. Airliners have fire bottles filled with Halon to extinguish
| flames, but they're ineffective if the cowling separates from
| the engine. That's assuming this uncontained failure didn't
| damage the bottle or wiring to it.
|
| 1. Kudos, that's exactly the way to do it. If it was a screw on
| top of the wing though, it was likely communicated later as one
| screw coming off a panel isn't a big deal.
| saagarjha wrote:
| One of the best parts of everyone carrying a camera in their
| pocket is you can get high-resolution images of incidents like
| these as a matter of course.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1235/
| sumedh wrote:
| and yet no good video of a UFO.
| nexuist wrote:
| Of course, you can explain your way out of that one too: The
| aliens found out we got smartphones, so they decided to stop
| making appearances now that they know they can be recorded.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| That second-last photo of the ?cowling? on the ground with no
| damage to the house or the vehicle is just astonishing.
| marwatk wrote:
| I thought so too (I live a block away) but it actually did
| significant damage:
|
| https://v.redd.it/ishfm09j6pi61
| m00dy wrote:
| How's that possible it managed to fly with only one engine ?
| philjohn wrote:
| Read up about ETOPS, which is what allows twin engined aircraft
| to fly long stretches over water.
| minxomat wrote:
| That is not a problem.
| xnx wrote:
| Amazingly, I believe planes are designed/certified to do
| everything (e.g. take off fully loaded) with only a single
| working engine.
| pintxo wrote:
| And if they loose the remaining one, all goes south:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn1a2lSk_UI&feature=emb_logo
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| No, planes glide just fine. That plane simply did not have
| enough altitude, or lift considering the bank angle to
| recover
| pintxo wrote:
| Their problem really was a lack of situational awareness
| / crew resource management.
|
| As they did shut down their perfectly well working engine
| instead of the broken one. Obviously that's not improving
| your situation in any way.
| shiny wrote:
| Not if you have Sully in the cockpit [1]. They can still
| glide.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesley_Sullenberger
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not very well, though.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Well enough.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
|
| > In 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) the aircraft lost
| 5,000 feet (1,500 m), giving a glide ratio of
| approximately 12:1 (dedicated glider planes reach ratios
| of 50:1 to 70:1).
|
| > Air Canada Flight 143 came to a final stop on the
| ground 17 minutes after running out of fuel.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Not true - most planes must abort the takeoff if any engine
| fails below a certain speed.
| [deleted]
| S_A_P wrote:
| Planes _must_ be able to do this to be certified.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Well, assuming they have two+.
|
| A C-172 isn't gonna fly too far with an engine out.
| tialaramex wrote:
| But, the pilot should be assuming that its single engine
| will fail, and prepared for that eventuality when it's most
| likely, which is during take off.
|
| Every flight the person sat at the controls ought to
| already know, before they're accelerating down the runway,
| what they're going to do when (not if, if you keep flying
| these little prop planes you've got to assume it'll happen
| eventually) the engine quits. What's beyond that airfield
| fence? A carpark? A pond? A school?
|
| The "impossible turn" (landing where you took off) might
| legitimately be a valid strategy for your failure in some
| circumstances if you've thought it through, but if you're
| doing it because you had no plan you're very likely to find
| out why they call it that.
| JCM9 wrote:
| It's designed to fly with only one engine. Not with great
| performance, but it will stay in the air. Routine procedure for
| twin engine aircraft.
| xvf22 wrote:
| Not only fly but climb.
|
| Commercial aircraft are required to fly safely should one of
| the two engines fail at any point of the flight, including
| takeoff at speeds beyond v1.
| snuxoll wrote:
| For the uninformed:
|
| V1: Speed at which the take off attempt should no longer be
| aborted
|
| Vr: Speed at which the plane should be pitched up (rotated)
|
| V2: Speed at which the plane can safely climb with one
| engine
|
| If an engine fails after V1 the runway is supposed to have
| sufficient length that you can hit Vr, rotate, and be 35
| feet off the ground and traveling at V2 before you run out
| of tarmac even with a single engine.
| xvf22 wrote:
| Fair enough and my memory may be fuzzy but I see quite a
| few references to V1 as being the minimum single engine
| takeoff speed.
|
| https://skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/493.pdf (page 2)
| zerocrates wrote:
| I don't have any specialist knowledge here, but that
| seems to make sense. If you're under V1 then you can
| still abort takeoff. Having that be the _minimum_ for
| single-engine takeoff essentially sets up the rule that
| if you lose an engine while you _can_ safely abort, then
| you must.
| snuxoll wrote:
| It's kind of poorly worded. Hitting V1 means you are
| committed to taking off, single engine failure or not -
| but you HAVE to reach V2 to safely climb on one engine.
|
| This should happen within moments of hitting Vr, but
| being single-engine after V1 means you went from hitting
| Vr halfway down the runway to potentially doing so at the
| ass-end of your minimum runway length. This means you
| have basically no room for any pilot error or other
| failures, and why engine failure on take-off is routinely
| rehearsed.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| ... and to fly that way for quite some time with high
| confidence of success.
|
| If you think about it: this aircraft was flying to Hawaii;
| after crossing the west coast, it would be flying almost
| 2,500 miles over the ocean to get there.
|
| If you lost the engine halfway there (instead of soon after
| takeoff), you'd either have to turn around and fly back
| toward California or continue onwards; which is almost a
| three hour flight.
|
| The concept is called ETOPS for Extended Twin Operations; and
| the Boeing 777 was the first twin-engine aircraft rated to do
| this (fly up to three hours for the nearest available
| airport).
| mhh__ wrote:
| Lesson's learned in the aviation industry are worth their
| weight in blood, so the engineers have learnt the hard way to
| plan for every reasonable eventuality.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Why do you think it has two engines in the first place?
| Sn0wCoder wrote:
| Come on, we all know so they can go faster.
| msla wrote:
| If that was the reason, they'd paint it red!
| chrisseaton wrote:
| They could go faster with a single larger engine. Why do
| you think they went with two engines instead of a single
| larger engine? Redundancy.
| ghaff wrote:
| Not clear to me that you'd design a commercial turbofan
| aircraft with one engine if you eliminated reliability
| requirements. You need to feed air to the engine and, to
| the degree you have wings, might as well have 2 engines.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The idea that the engines need to sit on the wings like
| they do is something seems important, because it's so
| often done, but is actually not necessary. You can put a
| single engine in the tail, or on top of the cabin, or on
| the top of the cockpit, or underneath. They go on the
| wings because when you need two (for redundancy) it's a
| good place to put them for balance, and because it makes
| them nicely accessible for maintenance.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Trijets are cool!
| dehrmann wrote:
| > it's so often done
|
| The MD-80 had two rear engines and was a fairly popular
| plane. A lot of smaller jets still have rear engines,
| too.
| ghaff wrote:
| The MD-80 (and 727) were old turbojets though. Probably a
| lot harder to come up with a practical tailmounted design
| with a turbofan although I'm open to it being possible to
| mount one turbofan above the fuselage.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Not sure what you mean? I didn't say it was always done.
| In fact the point I was making was that it wasn't always
| done. I gave my own counter-examples. It's just when
| people look at modern planes they always see two engines
| and think that's the way it has to be. It clearly isn't.
| ghaff wrote:
| Of course military aircraft have different requirements
| (and many have just one engine in the tail). Certainly
| I'm not enough of an aero/astro engineer to know if,
| positing a perfectly reliable engine, you'd mount just
| one somewhere on the fuselage.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Citation needed. It's not at all obvious that a single
| huge engine is in any way better than two for a given
| speed.
| Sn0wCoder wrote:
| Note sure this is reliable source but " In general, twin
| engine aircraft allow for faster speeds, and faster
| pickup..."[1]
|
| 1 - https://www.vikingair.com/twin-otter-
| information/twin-otter-...
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| This is basic aeronautical engineering. Barring the need
| for redundancy, turbofans are most efficient and quieter
| with larger intake sizes, the main limiting factor being
| fan tip speed.
|
| This is the reason that the 737 had the MCAS stuff. They
| increased the size of the engine that caused ground
| clearance problems, which required shifting them.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Citation needed.
|
| Look up 'ETOPS'.
| mannykannot wrote:
| While redundancy makes it a moot issue, if I am not
| mistaken, 777s already use some of the most powerful
| engines available. As for how fast they fly, I believe it
| is mostly set by the speed of sound.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Yes they use two of the most powerful engines... and just
| one of those is more than enough to fly the plane just
| fine almost as fast as they are allowed to... so why else
| would they have two of them if not redundancy?
|
| Fundamentally people can look it up themselves - 'ETOPS'
| - the redundancy requirement is a written regulation.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I think it should be obvious that I am responding to the
| claim "they could go faster with a single larger engine."
| no-one is arguing against redundancy (in which matter,
| ETOPS is just one aspect.)
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| _If_ they needed to go faster, they could do that with a
| single larger engine if they wanted to (which they may
| have to develop.) But they don 't, because they're
| limited as you've explained.
|
| > no-one is arguing against redundancy
|
| Sn0wCoder said they reason they had two engines was to go
| faster and not redundancy, and m00dy thinks they can't
| fly without two engines.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Point taken that some people had mistaken ideas about
| twin-engine airplanes, but those mistakes are most
| straightforwardly resolved by the redundancy
| consideration alone, which dominates other issues.
|
| > _If_ they needed to go faster, they could do that with
| a single larger engine if they wanted to _(which they may
| have to develop.)_
|
| Plus a significantly different airframe and perhaps
| engine intakes to deal with the transonic issue that I
| also mentioned. It is an idea that bubbles up perennially
| [1], but so far, the economics have ensured that it
| doesn't go much beyond the concept stage.
|
| This has become rather silly, but it seques into a
| related issue: It seems to me that fan-blade failure
| incidents (or at least uncontained fan-blade failure
| incidents) have increased in frequency in the last few
| years. If so, maybe this is a sign that we are already
| pushing a bit too hard on the limits of current
| technology?
|
| [1] https://www.boeing.com/features/2019/01/spreading-
| our-wings-...
| btgeekboy wrote:
| The other engine provides enough thrust to keep the plane
| airborne. The pilots (and likely other onboard systems)
| compensate for the asymmetric thrust with the rudder.
|
| As scary as it looks, this is one type of event that pilots
| routinely train for, both to get their initial multi-engine
| certification, and on their airlines' simulators.
| gshubert17 wrote:
| > The other engine provides enough thrust to keep the plane
| airborne.
|
| We could hear the remaining (loud) engine as the plane flew
| over. Our house is less than 2 miles from where the parts
| landed and right under its flight path.
|
| The boom just before that sounded like a sonic boom and shook
| our house perceptibly.
|
| There's been some property damage (a smashed truck top and a
| big hole in a roof) but no reports of injuries to this time
| (18:45 Mountain time).
| londons_explore wrote:
| They happen pretty frequently... Just normally they don't
| look as visually spectacular as this.
| danaliv wrote:
| To a first approximation, if it takes X thrust to stay aloft,
| the engines produce a combined total of more than 2X, and there
| is a speed above which the rudder produces enough aerodynamic
| force to maintain directional control.
|
| If you want to get into the nitty gritty, look up multiengine
| airplane type certification requirements.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| This is quite timely, I was just looking at similar incidents
| yesterday.
|
| It is somewhat similar to a BA A319 flight where the engine
| covers weren't latched. They immediately ripped off, taking out
| one of the engines. Similar footage of exposed engine internals.
| Safely landed after dumping fuel. That one led to a redesign of
| the latches.
|
| Another very interesting one I found was a prop going through the
| fuselage of a DC-8 in Edmonton in 2014. A passenger was inches
| from being killed.
|
| A319: https://avherald.com/h?article=462beb5e
|
| DC-8: https://avherald.com/h?article=47cee08a&opt=0
| midasuni wrote:
| The BA pilot headed across central london back to heathrow,
| dropping debris along the way, rather than land at stansted -
| avoiding built up areas, but costing BA more.
| hntestacc wrote:
| This is a test. If you see this, please pass through.
| martyvis wrote:
| Juan Browne, a 777 pilot, always gives a great citizen reporter /
| industry insider take on these incidents
| https://youtu.be/Tkieg1ZFcPE
| JCM9 wrote:
| The press will make a big deal out of this because of the
| spectacle of parts falling on people's lawns... but other than
| that this looks like a fairly routine engine out situation. Nice
| job by the crew.
| choeger wrote:
| And by "routine" you mean "standard when you lose an engine"
| not, "we lose an engine every other Friday", right? Because
| starting in a plane _is_ kind of scary enough, all things
| considered.
| pedrocr wrote:
| Uncontained engine failures are a big deal. Exactly because
| they're a risk to the plane, as debris can cause other
| failures, and a risk to people on the ground. Engines are
| specifically tested to see if they can contain these failures.
| This doesn't seem routine at all.
| JCM9 wrote:
| Yes, hence why I said the press will focus on this because of
| parts raining down. An airliner having an engine issue and
| returning single engine though is a routine thing... usually
| without missing parts.
| pedrocr wrote:
| Uncontained engine failures are cause to ground whole
| fleets of planes, even if the resulting emergency ended up
| mild. You're downplaying it way too much.
| leesalminen wrote:
| Also a similar event has happened before on a United
| Boeing 777-200 en route to Hawaii from Denver in 2016.
|
| http://avherald.com/h?article=4999bec5
|
| Also another similar event on a United Boeing 777-200 en
| route to Hawaii in 2018.
|
| http://avherald.com/h?article=4b4e8ca7
| Cederfjard wrote:
| When you say things like "the press will make a big deal
| out of this", one might take it to be implied that they
| shouldn't. I hear you that returning with one engine might
| be fairly routine, but isn't it fair to make a thing out of
| large chunks of metal falling from planes over populated
| areas?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They are both a big deal and expected. 3-4 happen per year
| and this is why pilots train for them.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think you're both right. I think it's routine in that once
| the disaster occurred, the emergency procedures to get the
| plane safely landed were executed without issue.
|
| I'm guessing kind of like firefighters describing a call as a
| routine, by the books operation.
| rectang wrote:
| Uncontained engine failure caused the 1989 Sioux City crash
| of United 232, when debris took out all three hydraulic
| lines.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232#Tak.
| ..
| leemailll wrote:
| Video of flight track and atc recording :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-zh7Sebr8
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Qs:
|
| Anyone tracking the quantity of these events as it relates to the
| pandemic? Has there been an uptick? If so, can it be correlated
| with maintenance crew availability?
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Pretty nice view of the burning engine from inside the plane,
|
| https://twitter.com/JacdecNew/status/1363245241109782528?ref...
| cuechan wrote:
| Reading this sentence makes me uncomfortable
| chovybizzass wrote:
| ...aaaaaaand that's why i refuse to fly.
| midasuni wrote:
| You're more likely to die on the drive to the airport than on
| the plane.
|
| Irony means you'd personally stay at home, but then have an
| engine cowling land on you in your garden.
| voiper1 wrote:
| It sounds terrifying, but even so it landed safely.
| Statistically, flying is safer than car travel...
| technicolorwhat wrote:
| Fellow scared dude here. I still fly even though I am
| terrified. Its annoying but don't let it stop you from seeeing
| all the beautiful places in the world. Usually I just get
| absolutely drunk, fake being sober going trough control and
| unfortunately that kinda works. Annoying hangover though.
| hahah. Wish I could do sth about it!
| larkinrichards wrote:
| I really appreciate focused news sites like avherald. Just the
| facts, a collection of photos and videos, straightforward.
|
| The video of the landing & the passengers cheering--- that huge
| sigh of relief. Brings a smile to my face.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| What, you don't like the anchor people on TV asking each other
| how they feel about every piece of news and making horrible
| puns at every opportunity? Or having expected announcements be
| reported as BREAKING NEWS?
| m463 wrote:
| How about the 1000 watermarks on every resampled movie and
| jpg?
| secfirstmd wrote:
| As a European who tuned in to US News for the US election I
| thought that was crazy.
|
| I'd watch a few of the right media orgs to see what they were
| saying and then stay on CNN/MSNBC etc for most of it. It's
| mad how so much of it every hour was essentially people just
| regurgitating stuff to fill the time. I mean OK what's
| happening is important but if you can't fill the airtime why
| not shift to other news (as in everything else happening in
| the world - HK democracy leaders were arrested during that
| time and I don't remember any proper mention through days
| upon days).
|
| Also the fake breaking news thing was stupid. The amount of
| times I'd turn up Wolf Blitzer or something because I would
| hear breaking news announcements in the background and
| thinking like you'd get at the BBC, Channel 4, RTE, France 24
| Al Jazeera English, etc that something important was
| happening. Only to find breaking news was basically just
| random scheduled things or just regurgitation of what
| happens. Here Sky News is bad for playing things up but
| nowhere near as bad as any of them.
|
| News on the right in the US is awful but the Left isn't much
| better unfortunately. What do people watch that's in the
| Centre and actual news rather than hyperbole? PBS?
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Fear makes things memorable, makes it hard to turn away.
| It's an evolutionary thing.
|
| If my mom calls me after she has been watching that shit,
| she sounds strung out on stimulants. Agitated, easily
| angered. She is normally a calm, fairly rational person.
|
| It's fear mongering and it exists because it is effective.
| If one gets caught up in it, it can be hard to take a step
| back and realize what is going on. One might hear
| rationalizations like "I have to stay informed" or "it is
| related to my work". Very similar behaviour to other
| addictions.
|
| I'm reminded of Tool lyrics:
|
| "Stare like a junkie Into the TV Stare like a zombie While
| the mother Holds her child Watches him die Hands to the sky
| crying Why, oh why? 'cause I need to watch things die From
| a distance Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
| You all need it too, don't lie
|
| Why can't we just admit it?"
| nyolfen wrote:
| reminded me of a post i saw earlier today:
|
| > Occasionally watching terrestrial/mainstream TV is
| equivalent to dipping your head back into the Cave,
| except, the shadows no longer make any sense, and yet
| everyone is entrapped by them. It's noisy, bright and
| hellish, you can't go back, you're in a different world
| now.
|
| once you can curate information feeds and investigate
| topics in depth on demand, not to mention adblocking,
| watching tv at all feels like a psychic assault
| umanwizard wrote:
| All US TV "news" is intolerable garbage, but since the US
| is the global cultural hegemon, plenty of foreign media
| outlets cover our news. Almost any well-respected European
| broadcaster is a better source for US political news than
| any in the country.
|
| Newspapers are better than TV: the New York Times and Wall
| Street Journal are both much less sensational than any of
| the broadcasters.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| They figured that little "Breaking News Alert!" out during
| 9/11, during which it was useful, but not at all after. I
| remember when Jason Priestly got into a car accident and
| they started throwing those alerts up. I realized then,
| "ok. Now they've jumped the shark"
|
| The only thing that amazes me at this point is that it is
| apparently still effective enough that they keep doing it.
| ptero wrote:
| If you want news on a hot button topic it is usually better
| to watch it reported from far away. Less attachment leads
| to more information and less spin.
|
| Thus I would read US election news on European or Asian
| news sites, Brexit from Asia, etc. Just my 2c.
| sneak wrote:
| I tried to do that, but even MSNBC these days seems to have
| fallen to hyperpartisan agitprop.
|
| I check nyt and cnn (both with a large grain of salt)
| periodically (~1x per week, for 5-10 minutes?) but
| unfortunately neither of those are quite as reliable as one
| would hope.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Reliable by what metric?
| sneak wrote:
| https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/torture-is-a-legal-term-
| why-...
| IgorPartola wrote:
| My favorite is lately CNN posts an article outlining what
| the new administration is planning on doing the next few
| days. Then when they do every part of it, they post a
| BREAKING NEWS article about that item. Like, I, a very
| causal reader of the news, knew it was going to happen. Who
| is it a surprise to?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| If you're smart you aren't watching anything, especially
| since we know now that the more you watch the less in tune
| with reality you are.
| doomrobo wrote:
| I think the answer is don't watch TV news if you can help
| it. If 100% of their revenue comes from ads, then their
| incentives are clear: keep you watching no matter what.
|
| The way I see it, written news at least has a wider range
| of options, and the subscription model means they have
| slightly less incentive to be so manipulative.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Yep agree absolutely. I probably read 5-10 different
| global media a day normally online. I rarely watch TV
| news but it was sort of an experiment I guess. Wow some
| of the stuff on places like Newsmax made Fox look like
| The Guardian.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Newsmax and OAN are notorious for extremely slanted
| coverage.
|
| The Guardian has a slant, but nearly every news outlet
| will have some slant, either by coverage or through
| omission. But it's certainly a lot worse at Newsmax and
| OAN.
|
| EDIT: accidentally said "doesn't have"
| joshuahughes wrote:
| The Guardian doesn't have a slant? You might want to
| reconsider that...
|
| "the Guardian is seen as Britain's most left-wing
| newspaper"
|
| https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-
| reports/2017/0...
| secfirstmd wrote:
| I love The Guardian, it's the closest to my views but it
| most it definitely has a slant. I don't mind that. It's
| news is newsy and it's commentary is openly left wingish.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > I love The Guardian, it's the closest to my views but
| it most it definitely has a slant. I don't mind that.
|
| You have to be careful with this though.
|
| Once upon a time people said this and what they meant was
| essentially selection bias. So they would report all the
| major stories, but when choosing the minor stories to
| fill the rest of their space, it would be stories
| favorable to one side or the other. And the stories they
| did cover were covered fairly.
|
| The common practice now is purposely misleading people.
| Omitting key details of a story or selectively quoting
| people out of context to change the meaning of what they
| said.
|
| Probably the canonical example of this is when people
| were protesting the taking down of statues of members of
| the confederacy. Some but not all of the protestors were
| neo-nazis. Others make the case that people are more than
| the worst thing they ever did, or that taking down the
| statues is an attempt to memory hole what happened.
|
| Trump got in front of a camera and said "very fine people
| on both sides." In the same interview he makes explicit
| that he's not talking about the racists and condemns
| them:
|
| https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-
| trump...
|
| That quote was widely taken out of context for years to
| imply that he was calling the racists "very fine people."
|
| It's not the same thing as just choosing which minor
| stories to cover. It's dishonesty.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Yup, its nickname ("Grauniad") may be about its
| historically awful proofreading but it's just as
| politically off-centre as say the Daily Telegraph
| ("Torygraph") which gets an explicit accusation of
| political bias right in the nickname.
|
| Every publication is going to have _at least_ editorial
| bias in what opinions get written, and what stories are
| covered, at all or in greater profile.
|
| Private Eye - a famous British satirical magazine - has
| an entire section ("Street of Shame" referring to Fleet
| Street) about the worst of this (e.g. newspapers taking
| long term advertiser money and then conspicuously failing
| to mention grave problems at the advertised business),
| but it too has its share of blind spots, most famously it
| took Wakefield's side on the MMR vaccine claims long
| after mainstream opinion had shifted to focus on the
| apparent abuse and profiteering by Wakefield, and even
| after he was struck off it continued to slow walk any
| suggestion that its coverage had been wrong or
| misleading. Its coverage for the present pandemic has
| been... less than stellar also, except in the sense that
| it criticises the government for doing a bad job, an open
| goal sometimes missed at a few of the most right-wing
| papers.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| That was actually a typo. Need to proofread before I
| post, apparently.
| nowandlater wrote:
| The PBS News Hour is pretty solid,
| https://www.youtube.com/user/PBSNewsHour
|
| The weekly videos from Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus on
| Bloggingheads Tv is pretty good too.
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeamuoYuBeRnRRbmq5CmjVg
| systematical wrote:
| PBS news hour is a total of 6 hours per week (weekend
| shows are 30 minutes each). In those 6 hours, they cover
| more than any one of the 24 hour news networks. You're
| killing your mind watching 24 hour news networks, any of
| them.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Thanks, yeh I think when I want US News I might look at
| those instead
| systematical wrote:
| Catch live and past episodes on YouTube.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| PBS stations also run local news programs, too. The ones
| that I've watched have always been great compared to most
| entertainment news programs.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Tweets now often start with the 3 gyrophares then "breaking
| news urgent!!!"
|
| It is highly stressful. A good tip is to write "Breaking",
| "Alert" and "Urgent" as spam words in the Twitter
| administration, so all tweets containing it will be hidden
| (or leave them, to ensure the Twitter experience is as bad
| as possible until you hate opening it).
| hervature wrote:
| Reuters TV, 30 minutes every day, about 15-20 stories from
| around the globe but focusing on US. Read by a faceless
| person in an emotionless voice. That's what I do.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| i like that they keep such a positive tone of voice. I get
| the impression they delight in sharing "bad" news since it
| invariably can be blamed on whichever party their outlet
| opposes.
| fireattack wrote:
| Am I the only one who get really tired of this kind of
| sarcasm?
| wl wrote:
| The same point could be made without sarcasm. Would you
| object, then?
| afavour wrote:
| Without the sarcasm it would just be restating exactly
| what the parent comment said.
|
| I agree with the OP: if we disapprove of posts that only
| say "same" or "me too" we should probably also discourage
| posts that dress exactly that in sarcasm.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > if we disapprove of posts that only say "same" or "me
| too" we should probably also discourage posts that dress
| exactly that in sarcasm.
|
| I fully agree on this point, but the comment in question
| (sarcastically) criticized certain behaviours ("asking
| each other how they feel about every piece of news" and
| "making horrible puns at every opportunity"), so I don't
| think it fully falls under that threshold.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Sarcasm is also somewhat passive-aggressive.
| TwoNineFive wrote:
| HO HO THAT'S RIGHT BOB
| xur17 wrote:
| I distinctly recall signing up for "breaking news alerts" a
| few days after 9/11. I figured if something major happened,
| it would be nice to receive a notification about it. I
| quickly learned that my definition of breaking news was
| dramatically different from that of the news..
| midasuni wrote:
| As far as I'm concerned breaking news should be stuff that
| interrupts non news channel output. Lost that argument
| decades ago though.
| gowld wrote:
| No, and we don't appreciate sarcastic imitations either, as
| that brings unpleasantness here while we are appreciating a
| better environment.
| derefr wrote:
| I would be intrigued to see a news site where only news
| interesting enough to "speak for itself" without
| editorialization makes the cut to publish.
|
| It'd probably be pretty slow to update, but that's be fine by
| me.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Don't forget the quasi-experts they bring on to fill even
| more airtime.
| malandrew wrote:
| Appropriate: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/reactive
| Fogest wrote:
| BREAKING NEWS: More people died of COVID today. I see see
| often headlines in my Google news feed saying something along
| those lines.
|
| I've stopped clicking on YouTube videos that give me no idea
| what they are going to be in the thumbnail/title. For example
| on Linus Tech Tips second channel ShortCiruit a good chunk of
| their videos do this. Latest one from 3 years ago in my sub
| box "I almost hurt myself open this...." and the thumbnail is
| him maybe holding a big TV with a game on the screen. I can't
| tell if it's a big monitor, a tv, or if the video will be
| about what's on the screen in the thumbnail. I wish that
| videos/news/blogs that use titles like this could also just
| tack something on the end in brackets saying a couple words
| about what it's actually talking about.
|
| Too often I'm having to fall prey to the clickbait just to
| see if maybe the video will interest me or not. More often
| than not it doesn't and I just wasted time.
| milankragujevic wrote:
| Offtopic to OP but regarding Linus Tech Tips:
|
| I also stopped watching 90% of all LMG (his company) videos
| (on all their channels) because of the clickbait forcing me
| to click onto things that I am not interested in, only to
| quickly leave the video. I am not going to watch what I
| don't want to watch whether it has a clickbait thumbnail
| and title or not, so they just annoy me more with this. I
| have not voiced my opinion for two reasons: 1) it's a
| really common opinion, Linus is aware of it and this style
| is obviously good for business since they kept it, 2) fear
| of intense backlash from the fan community.
|
| So yeah, got that off my chest.
| eptcyka wrote:
| There's a fan community? I was always under the
| impression that his videos served as glorified ads for
| consumer tech. The technical insight delivered was skin
| deep. Didn't he brag about a 20 drive NAS one week only
| to cry about the raid0 config dying and taking down a lot
| of their footage the next week?
| exikyut wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're referring to
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSrnXgAmK8k ("All of our
| data is gone"), but in any case, I've heard references to
| ZFS in later videos so yeah, the situation's probably not
| quite that insane now.
|
| That video is technically hilarious though, it TL;DRs as
| "download Ubuntu-based USB image provided random RAID
| recovery company, boot USB and provide said company
| headless SSH to broken system"... at one point in the
| video I remember Linus talks to another recovery company
| about the process and the guy pretty much went
| "...O.o..." which IMO sums my own opinion up, lol
| spyridonas wrote:
| Yeah but the actual raid card got kaput. Interesting
| recovery process. (Basically read the firmware and flash
| to another card as far as i remember)
| zucker42 wrote:
| I don't think it was Raid 0 if you're talking about the
| time a long time ago they nearly lost data. If I recall
| correctly, the data was in Raid 6, but there was no
| external backup.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Video for those interested:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSrnXgAmK8k
|
| Actually a pretty good telling of a story all too common
| for those tasked with handling precious data.
| Fogest wrote:
| Yeah it seems like almost all of their videos are using
| clickbaity titles now especially on the secondary
| channels like ShortCiruit. My viewership of their videos
| has really dropped. I'm sure they have seen results from
| gaming the recommended videos but I'd be interested to
| see if it has affected how many average viewers they get
| from the subscribed people.
|
| Man first you had to get AdBlock, and recently it feels
| necessary to use SponsorBlock, and now it feels like
| there needs to be a new one called ClickBaitBlock which
| maybe swaps the video titles for a user voted new title
| similar to SponsorBlock. I'd actually install it if it
| existed.
| ajayyy wrote:
| Not the same as what you wanted, but this one can help:
| https://github.com/pietervanheijningen/clickbait-remover-
| for...
|
| I do think it would be cool though to expand SponsorBlock
| into more crowd-sourced things, since there is already a
| community of people willing to help.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| That's quite a name! I thought it was a chrome extension
| at first. Thanks for pointing it out.
| Fogest wrote:
| Unfortunately this one seems to just change the casing of
| the title and then grabs a frame from the video to use
| for the thumbnail. I find that the thumbnail at least
| sometimes contains something useful whereas this may be
| counterproductive.
|
| With YouTube you can hover over the video thumbnail and
| see a short preview of the video play so that aspect is
| already kinda covered by YouTube itself.
|
| It's definitely getting closer to what I was talking
| about but unfortunately falls short.
| halefx wrote:
| I watch LMG content because I find it more entertaining
| than anything else on YouTube, and I'm not even a PC
| gamer. I rarely look at the poster or video title at all
| before watching, I just queue the new items immediately.
| opensmtpd wrote:
| I'm on the same boat. I stopped watching their videos
| after I started to feel more and more videos were made
| just for the sake of making more videos. Every time I
| bite and watch through, I realize I haven't gained any
| fun, information, nor education and just wasted 10
| minutes and 1 second of my time. I don't think it's just
| LTT. I feel that more and more channels are going this
| way.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I'm in the same boat .. actually, I'm more set in my ways,
| if the title doesn't tell me what it's about, I don't
| bother looking at the thumbnail. Here are some titles from
| recent videos: I REALLY Love Building
| Computers!! Never seen one of these before...
| Sorry. Your gaming laptop sucks now. Maybe
| upgrading is pointless..... Linus was right.
|
| It's such click-bait, and so annoying.
|
| It's sad about LTT too. I can't find it now, but I saw a
| video of his talking about this. He doesn't actually like
| these titles, but claims to have proof they improve
| viewership counts, so in his quest to optimized for higher
| and higher counts, he annoys some long time viewers. Can't
| blame him if it works, but I do wonder if it'll be self-
| defeating in the end.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >but I saw a video of his talking about this. He doesn't
| actually like these titles, but claims to have proof they
| improve viewership counts
|
| Veritasium also had video on this topic:
| https://youtu.be/fHsa9DqmId8?t=1041
| bilegeek wrote:
| Here's the video where Linus goes into it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRGBAUz5mA
|
| I'll give him credit for being straight about it.
| Fogest wrote:
| Oh yeah I can't really blame them. I don't feel upset
| personally at them for it, I feel upset at YouTube for
| making these clickbaity titles do better than more normal
| titles. It's unfortunate because this is likely actually
| just machine learning realizing that a lot of us humans
| use our pea brains to decide if we want to watch a video
| and thus often times those clickbait videos get more
| clicks. But I really wished they put some manual tweaks
| in place to make the user experience a bit more enjoyable
| and stop promoting those clickbait videos in
| recommendations so that creators didn't feel the need to
| do it.
|
| I mentioned it in my other comment, but it feels like we
| need a ClickBaitBlock similar to SponsorBlock which uses
| user generated timestamps to skip sponsor blocks in
| videos. Could be a user generated/voted on new title that
| gets used. I'd actually use something like that too. It
| allows creators to play their YouTube game, but also us
| avoid the game if we choose to. Hell the extension could
| even support allowing the video creator to submit their
| own alternative titles. It would be a neat way to beat
| YouTube at it's own game.
| jrockway wrote:
| I am interested in how he A/B tests these things. I've
| never seen non-clickbait LMG videos, so if they're
| constantly testing they must not be up for long. Or they
| test on their forums or something like that.
|
| (I know it sounds like I'm confirming the theory that
| videos don't get recommended if they're not clickbaity,
| but I only rarely get LTT recommendations in general. I
| do specifically go to the channel and look for things to
| watch every so often, however, and it's there that I
| don't see any non-clickbait test versions.)
| mc10 wrote:
| They often change the titles of their videos, sometimes
| multiple times. Not sure if that counts as "A/B testing"
| though.
| wyxuan wrote:
| They don't do the clickbait titles or thumbnails on
| floatplane(their in house version of youtube), and will
| often edit the titles if it's too clickbait-ey
| Fogest wrote:
| Does something like that include their videos from their
| other channels too?
| easton wrote:
| All of their channels are in the same LTT page on
| floatplane, although apparently they will be moved to
| other pages later.
| mherdeg wrote:
| If you value the work you should definitely donate some money
| (PayPal link in the sidebar on every page on avherald.com). I'm
| pretty sure it's still just one person (Simon Hradecky) doing
| outstanding editorial work.
| vmception wrote:
| Any links to the passenger livestreams?
| divbzero wrote:
| The straightforward captions are also delightful:
|
| > _The aircraft seen in flight_
|
| > _The engine inlet in a garden_
|
| > _Engine debris on the Broomfield soccer field_
| benatkin wrote:
| Counterpoint to the last two:
|
| - it's just a front yard (It would make a good CAPTCHA
| question - select all photos of gardens. Anyone choosing a
| photo of this yard before the debris landed there would
| fail.)
|
| - there's more than one soccer field in Broomfield
| gdavisson wrote:
| I'm pretty sure "garden" is being used in the British
| sense, roughly corresponding to "yard" in American English.
| artificial wrote:
| It would be amusing if it turned out to be machine vision
| transcriptions.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "We are unable to determine if this is a puppy or a
| blueberry muffin"
| valuearb wrote:
| Michaela's video is terrifying.
| nickt wrote:
| Just read the comments, that'll fix your optimism!
| [deleted]
| paulmd wrote:
| That's not typical, I'd like to make that point. There are a lot
| of these engines going all over the world all the time and very
| seldom does anything like this happen.
|
| Most of them are built so the front doesn't fall off at all.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Lucky it didn't happen half way. Could have been several hours on
| one engine and the other one shaking and on fire.
| [deleted]
| xxpor wrote:
| Luckily flight plans are always required to be within a certain
| number of minutes of a place to land, and are certified to
| operate on one engine for that period.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
| azalemeth wrote:
| Very rudely, I'd like to mention the popular backronymn for
| ETOPS: "engines turn or passengers swim"...
| yread wrote:
| ETOPS helps but it assumes that the engine is just shut down.
| Here you have compromised aerodynamics and potentially the
| wing, tail or other systems damaged by the parts of engine
| xxpor wrote:
| Of course. But simply an engine not working shouldn't be a
| concern. Obviously land as soon as possible, but it's not
| really that dangerous (assuming the other engine doesn't
| fail for the same reason)
|
| Turbine blades failing and piecing a hydraulic line on the
| other hand...
| midasuni wrote:
| 138 is a certain number of minutes. It's still a long time.
| [deleted]
| alkonaut wrote:
| Indeed. The scary part here isn't the loss of (function in)
| one engine, it's structural issues, fire and so on. A violent
| engine failure can give a whole range of problems beyond just
| the loss of the engine. It would likely have been ok even
| half way to Hawaii, but it would have been scary.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The shaking would concern me.
| mrfusion wrote:
| How do you account for oceans?
| disantlor wrote:
| i think in part by having more than 2 engines on those
| flights
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| Very few in service aircraft in commercial passenger
| fleets have more than two engines, and even the ones with
| more than two engines have modified ETOPS rules to comply
| with.
| midasuni wrote:
| The two that come to mind are the 747 and a380
| jrockway wrote:
| By having airports on islands, or by pushing up the number
| of minutes that the engines/operator are certified for.
| ufo wrote:
| For transatlantic flights, two important "backups" are in
| Iceland and in the Azores. I wonder how often airplanes
| actually have to detour to these airports...
| kps wrote:
| Last I know of is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236
| running out of fuel.
| sxcurry wrote:
| Years ago I was on a 747 from SFO to LHR that landed in
| Iceland - oil pressure problem in an engine. A guy drove
| out with a pickup truck, climbed into the engine using a
| ladder in the back of the truck, and started hammering
| away. After a few hours in the terminal we got back on
| the plane and flew the rest of the way to LHR. I kept
| wondering just how qualified he was...
| will_asouka wrote:
| Happens fairly regularly but for passenger issues rather
| than technical- medical emergencies and disruptive
| passengers usually.
|
| Airlines have contracts with companies who provide a sat
| phone link to doctors who have the flight information and
| medical facilities at possible diversion airfields. Eg
| MedAire.
| jfk13 wrote:
| It happens: I was on an London - USA flight that detoured
| to Iceland some years ago. (Fortunately nothing was
| seriously broken, burning, etc., but there was a warning
| indication of some kind that the pilot wanted to have
| checked.)
|
| The view coming in to Keflavik, with whales swimming in
| the ocean below, was pretty cool.
| snuxoll wrote:
| Note that ETOPS goes beyond just engine ratings, it also
| requires the operator meet all sorts of additional
| requirements (what if you DO have to divert - can you
| have the passengers retrieved within 24 hours, do you
| have food and shelter if you have to divert to a non-
| commercial airport along the flight path, are your
| technicians doing proper maintenance, etc).
| jrockway wrote:
| Good point. Edited my comment to add that :)
| Tuxer wrote:
| Transoceanic aircraft need lots of ETOPS time. For example
| the boeing 777 (twin-engine, transoceanic) has an ETOPS of
| 330 minutes, so it always needs to be 330 min away from an
| airport (which is 11 hours of flight from airport A to
| airport B, not taking wind into account)
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| ETOPS accounts for oceans. Please read the link.
| ghaff wrote:
| The "certain number of minutes" includes being over oceans.
| If you're too many minutes, you can't fly there. ("Minutes"
| are fairly large. I believe at least one Airbus aircraft is
| now at 4 hours.)
| tshaddox wrote:
| Generally transatlantic jetliners have more than 2 engines,
| although I suppose that's beginning to change.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| This has not been true for a decade
| rsynnott wrote:
| The vast majority of transatlantic airliners today are
| two engine aircraft. For four engines, you're basically
| looking at 747s and maybe the odd a340 that has somehow
| escaped retirement. The last large four engine airliner
| will go out of production next year.
| ghaff wrote:
| That really hasn't been true since 747s started to be
| retired so it started to change years ago and 2-engine is
| now essentially the norm.
| alistairSH wrote:
| By staying as close to land as required to ensure safety.
| until fairly recently, flights to Hawaii were largely
| served by 3- or 4-engine jets. It's only in the last
| several decades that ETOPS regulations have shifted enough
| to allow regular twin-engine service to Honolulu.
|
| See the 3rd response...
| https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119921
| Aperocky wrote:
| The regulations have been shifted but only time will tell
| if it should be shifted. I guess we'll find out in 20
| years.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| You stay close to land as much as possible. For example, LA
| to Tokyo, you basically fly up the west coast, give
| Canada's west coast a high five, and then come around below
| Alaska. It's less direct than it could be, but it's much
| safer in the event of an emergency.
| bluGill wrote:
| It is more.direct than it sounds though because the earth
| is round and so the shortest distance between two points
| curves.
| userbinator wrote:
| This has happened twice before to Southwest too:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_3472
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380
| trimbo wrote:
| VASAviation already has the radar/ATC video up:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7-zh7Sebr8
| dmoy wrote:
| That quoted ground observer. Do they work for the NTSB or
| something?
|
| I am 110% certain that if I saw a plane on fire in the sky, I
| would not have the presence of mind to remember the term "cloud
| deck", let alone the rest of those details.
|
| Ground observer: "Good sir, I do say that the cloud deck was
| quite low so I didn't get a good look, but the engine was mildly
| louder than usual, and possibly had smoke, but perhaps not, and
| appeared to be under control the whole time."
|
| Me, probably: "AAAAAAAAAAAAA PLANE ON FIRE IN THE SKY, RUN!!!"
| azalemeth wrote:
| It's very likely that they're an AvHerald reader. It's the
| absolute de facto gold standard website in its field, and
| sensationalism and drama is not appreciated -- a large chunk of
| the usual audience are aviation professionals. My dad was a
| pilot, and I've got some few hours myself. You can bet that if
| either of us watched this event happen, we'd mentally be
| documenting it as best as we possibly can, both to try to
| predict any useful information (e.g should we try to move!),
| and for any subsequent investigation.
|
| The excellent safety record of aviation originates from a
| detailed and pedantic paper trail that is written in blood.
| It's by learning as much as possible from every incident,
| without fear of censure or blame, that makes the skies safer
| for everybody.
| lrossi wrote:
| I can draw some parallels between that and a healthy SRE
| culture. Except for the casualties, of course. Wondering if
| the first SREs who created the guidelines had aviation
| industry experience.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Brent Chapman was one, and he worked in volunteer search
| and rescue.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Aviation regulations are written in blood. SRE regulations
| are written in lost weekends.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Depends on what systems the SRE is managing or even on
| the downstream clients relying on their work. Around Y2K
| a bug took the out the emergency call application for the
| fire department in Berlin at midnight New Year's Eve.
| People died because dispatch was not available. It's an
| IT system where people die if you mess up. AFAIR in one
| of the earlier prolonged AWS outages, some sort of
| medical provider failed and people were at risk. It's not
| all just display ads on websites.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| low key feel opposite - chaos engineering (to an extent
| obvs) would benefit flight controls...
|
| it's like that old experiment that i cant find source for -
| wall st traders switched with military guys and wall st
| outperformed mils because they are used to dealing with
| uncertain information...
| bananasbandanas wrote:
| There is a now a comment on that article where the ground
| observer identifies himself and gives a few more details, so
| looks like you're right.
|
| > _1) I was giving Simon a heads up to look for a report out
| of DEN - if it was anything, I thought it was just something
| like a (big) compressor stall. That was why so many caveats
| were there - I wasn 't sure at the time that the aircraft had
| had a problem. I didn't realize it was going to be widely
| reported until my mother texted me a couple of hours later
| asking if any of the plane parts came down close to me_
|
| > _2) Something I omitted that I should have put in: After I
| got home I imagined how many thumb-widths at arm 's length it
| would take to occlude it (from memory), and plugged that into
| similar triangles and the length of a 737 (didn't realize it
| was a 777) to get an estimated altitude and got 2-4 thousand
| meters. I thought the cloud deck was only 2000 feet AGL or
| so, so I didn't believe the numbers. I did change "a couple"
| to "a few" though. Turns out it was ~8000 feet AGL. I should
| have believed more in the math!_
| billfruit wrote:
| Only looked up Aviation Herald after you mentioned. Very
| informative, almost HN like, but even more dense and topical.
| kortilla wrote:
| > aviation originates from a detailed and pedantic paper
| trail that is written in blood
|
| The saying is "aviation regulations are written in blood"
| because each new regulation is usually in response to crash.
| https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/13081/why-do-
| pe...
|
| You don't keep a "paper trail written in blood".
| sn41 wrote:
| Pretty sure he was a pilot or a sea captain. I definitely would
| not refer to the right hand engine as "starboard engine".
| [deleted]
| perl4ever wrote:
| >"AAAAAAAAAAAAA PLANE ON FIRE IN THE SKY, RUN!!!"
|
| I grew up about 5 miles from an airport and for many years I
| had a recurring dream that I was looking out the window at an
| airliner that looked odd somehow or other, until I realized
| with growing horror it was going to crash in the back yard.
|
| I never saw anything like it in real life, nor was it ever a
| concern for me whether I was in a flight path when deciding
| where to live, but evidently my subconscious had a "to do" list
| that included "be prepared for planes dropping out of the sky".
|
| Strangely, I didn't have nightmares ever that I can remember
| about being _on_ a plane in distress. Even though as I got
| older I got more anxious about flying.
| maweki wrote:
| The first Final Destination movie starts with a ground
| observer scene of about that distance of a plane crashing
| right after takeoff.
|
| I don't know whether your age fits, but maybe you saw this
| and recalled it in your sleep every so often.
| cko wrote:
| I have the same recurring dream a few times a year. I
| believe for me they started after 9/11.
|
| Add that to the recurring dreams of losing all teeth, going
| to school only to realize there's a 20 page essay due,
| dinosaur attacks (inspired by Jurassic Park), and barely
| missing my school bus (that was just this morning).
|
| Btw I'm 35 now.
| russum wrote:
| Ugh, that "loosing all teeth" dream is very disturbing,
| quite annoying and even painful! Good thing is that I
| usually don't get it unless I had quite a few drinks the
| night before.
| avh02 wrote:
| I recently listened to one of the radio correspondents (Herbert
| Morrison) [1] that was observing the hindenberg coming in - and
| it amazed me the things he thinks of while he's talking about
| it (how the people waiting for the passengers will be
| distressed) and the eloquent language used. ("Oh, the
| humanity!")
|
| That said, he definitely also got distressed, but mostly
| remembered to describe.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ2qP4wd4LE
| willyt wrote:
| I expect the person interviewed is a pilot?
| dboreham wrote:
| Or an engineer?
| throwanem wrote:
| You'd be surprised. Years back, I saw what looked to be a near
| midair collision, including a smoke trail from one of the
| involved aircraft, and watched for a while from the front right
| seat of the Jeep my boss was driving us to a job site in.
| Presence of mind isn't really an issue. You're more just trying
| to understand and follow what you're seeing.
|
| Today, of course, I'd be watching through my 500mm lens and
| taking pictures all the while. This was long before I got back
| into photography, though, and long before you could get a 500mm
| tele that didn't cost as much as a car. Even so, it was
| interesting, not frightening - remember that the sky is a long
| way away, and so are most things that happen there, weather
| notwithstanding.
|
| Never did find out what actually happened.
| [deleted]
| karlkatzke wrote:
| No offense towards the average bear, but I would probably have
| dictated a statement the same way.
|
| I'm not an average bear though. I regularly read and refer to
| things learned from airlines and other high criticality career
| fields, and talk about them at conferences. My sister is an
| airline pilot and I might have been if I wasn't medically
| disqualified.
|
| I do participate in government emergency response work and that
| looks like the type of statement that would come from a trained
| observer who knows how to express directionality as
| unambiguously as possible.
| moltenguardian wrote:
| Probably a dumb question, but why don't the pilots cut the fuel
| to the right engine after they know it's on fire?
| PaulAnunda wrote:
| Someone in the comments mentioned that that isn't a fuel fire;
| its materials in the engine that are burning.
| l31g wrote:
| What is burning is probably leftover oil.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Fanned by a couple of 100 mile/hour winds. It would take a
| small miracle for the fire to go out by itself under those
| conditions, they may have tried to flood it with CO2 but it's
| so open to the elements even that may no longer work.
| elteto wrote:
| I'm almost certain they did. You might be seen the runoff in
| the lines?
| quiescant_dodo wrote:
| There are long checklists for handling uncommon scenarios like
| this. I would expect that was one of many items on the list,
| but I'm not familiar with the checklists. It is possible that
| the explosion disabled the fuel controls.
| gecko wrote:
| They do, but there may be residual gas or punctures that cause
| a gas leak. That's why each side of the plane has its own fuel
| tanks as well.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| That's crazy, in the Netherlands today there was another flight
| that dropped engine parts (much smaller though, they're said to
| have been turbine blades) that hit cars and people. It was also
| an airliner (747-400).
|
| Considering how rare an occurrence is, it's really weird to have
| both happen on the exact same day.
|
| https://www.airlive.net/breaking-turbine-blades-of-a-boeing-...
|
| By the way I'm surprised that fire keeps going on the B772. I
| assume the fuel was cut off, especially as the turbine seems to
| be just spinning in the wind. I'd imagine the remaining fuel
| would burn off quickly?
|
| This would really be scary being a passenger (especially when you
| know the wing it's hanging under is full of fuel).
| almost_usual wrote:
| Poisson distribution, higher probability of short periods
| between failures than long ones.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Anyone care to elaborate? I don't understand what he means,
| but I feel like this is an interesting thread to pull.
| nl wrote:
| Briefly: if you expect 10 failures in 10 years evenly
| distributed then you would expect 1 per year.
|
| If it is a Possion distribution then you'd expect them to
| bunch up and get years with none, then them concentrated
| over a few years.
|
| Possion distributions usually imply a time factor. That's
| concerning in this case as it implies maintenance isn't
| effective.
| nyolfen wrote:
| how would this apply to disparate aircraft on different
| maintenance cycles?
| gamegoblin wrote:
| It has nothing to do with aircraft, and everything to do
| with random chance. Basically, it is _more likely_ for
| time-series data to have clumps than to be perfectly
| even.
|
| Imagine you throw a three darts a board. Which is more
| likely: all darts are equidistant, or 2 of the darts are
| closer to each other than the 3rd? Now imagine it's 3
| events in time rather than 3 darts on a board. And the
| same logic applies to an arbitrary number of events, of
| course.
| nyolfen wrote:
| it seems to me that there is a lot of room between
| "perfectly even" and "twice on the same day"
| laurent92 wrote:
| Random = clusters happen.
|
| In fact, mathematicians were hired during the Battle of England
| to estimate whether the Germans were aiming for specific
| buildings ("why is there a cluster of bombs around this
| church???" or around some secret offices) or just spreading
| randomly. Verdict: They weren't aiming, it was random chance
| that bombs made some clusters onto some buildings. This is what
| random looks like: No even distribution, sometimes you get a
| cluster which looks like a series.
| Stupulous wrote:
| I think it depends on how frequent the thing in question is.
| If an engine losing parts is something that happens yearly,
| twice in one day is still pretty rare.
|
| But then you have to deal with degrees of freedom as well. If
| your search space is just 'two uncorrelated ~yearly events',
| there's enough of them that you'll always find false
| positives.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| For independent, random occurrences, the probability
| distribution for delta-T follows an exponential decay. I.e.
| the most likely time is "right after". Of course, that
| "most likely" can still be small. Fun fact: This is true
| for _any chosen point in time_ , i.e. the prob that this
| happens exactly one day after your birthday is higher than
| that it happens two days later.
| [deleted]
| silvestrov wrote:
| I've tried to find a non-clustering pseudo-random function.
|
| Anybody knows the name or urls of those?
| mathgenius wrote:
| Maybe quasi-random is what you are looking for?
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/doc/html/qrng.html
| silvestrov wrote:
| This is exactly it! Many thanks for the name.
| FabHK wrote:
| There's the (descriptively named) "low-discrepancy
| sequence", the most famous one being the Sobol sequence.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-discrepancy_sequence
| MauranKilom wrote:
| This is my go-to:
| http://extremelearning.com.au/unreasonable-effectiveness-
| of-...
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| Where I have read this before, Gravity's Rainbow?
| pvitz wrote:
| Grinstead & Snell in the part on Poisson distributions
| maybe?
| yread wrote:
| It could be oil that's on fire
| rossdavidh wrote:
| There is a saying, something like "once is bad luck, twice is a
| coincidence, three times is enemy action". So, if you get more
| than two big planes crashing in the same day, it's likely
| something like Al Qaeda (sp?) on 2001/09/11. If it's two
| planes, it's likely bad luck.
| ddalex wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion
| foepys wrote:
| I read on the German news about the Dutch incident and came
| to HN because I knew that somebody would've posted about it
| here. Found this thread and didn't fully read the headline,
| just "Boeing" and "engine failure". It took me a few seconds
| to realize that this was a completely different incident.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The Dutch incident is a relatively common one, the reason
| it's in the news is that turbine blades fell down on a
| residential area and someone got minor burns from picking
| one up.
|
| It's more typical to have this kind of failure early in the
| take off where the parts would fall on the airport and
| nobody would talk about it.
|
| All the rest of the news about circling at 10,000ft and
| then landing at a nearby airport is completely standard
| procedure that gets practiced all the time in the 6 months
| simulator checks. Basically you climb high enough to be
| able to dump fuel without it reaching the ground (minimum
| 6000ft, preferably higher) and still not too high such that
| you're burning a lot of fuel quickly because at 10,000 ft
| fuel usage is way higher than at 30,000. Then when the fuel
| dump is complete, engine secured, checklists done it's a
| relatively normal landing. Especially if you have 4 engines
| but even with 2 it's a landing every pilot can do and is
| trained for all the time.
| baptistejamin wrote:
| I don't really understand why this information is now #1 on
| HackerNews.
|
| Boeing 777 engines are the world's largest turbofans and pw4000
| Engine, involved in this explosion is in production since the
| 80/90, and is already used on other Airframes like a330.
|
| I know this accident looks impressive, but engine explosions like
| this one are things that happens years over years.
|
| On Airbus a380, similar explosions occurred.
|
| This kind of explosions looks very impressive, but those are
| things that happens quite a lot in aviation Industry.
| fit2rule wrote:
| >I don't really understand why this information is now #1 on
| HackerNews.
|
| Because HN readers invest, and this could have given some of
| them time to short Delta/Boeing stock ..
| [deleted]
| beervirus wrote:
| It's amazing that an aircraft can still fly pretty much normally
| and land safely after such a failure. Imagine if software were
| built with such resiliency.
| pintxo wrote:
| It exists, in the on-board systems of these planes.
| beervirus wrote:
| _737 MAX has entered the chat_
| pintxo wrote:
| How do you fix a broken hardware sensor in Software?
|
| Wasn't that the initial problem?
| beervirus wrote:
| You write the software to detect and be resilient in the
| face of hardware failure.
| pintxo wrote:
| If there is only one sensor, how do you know it's
| reporting wrong data?
| cbsks wrote:
| Here's a good video of the flight path and radio communications
| with the tower: https://youtu.be/G7-zh7Sebr8
|
| It's always amazing too me how calm everyone seems in emergency
| situations like that. It almost seems like a routine flight.
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