Boeing 777

G-VIIO involved. BA2276 to Gatwick Sept 08

Port engine failure. GE90

Uncontained engine failure during take-off run. Looks like a compressor failure.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34193767

Good photographs and lots of data here:

aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150908-0

According to the media the captain has said that he has quit flying after this incident. Again according to the media hes 63 and it was his penultimate trip anyway.

And again the media are saying that passengers actually stopped to gather their belongings before evacuating!!!

Its about 20 years ago that this type of engine was introduced and the commercial release of the composite fan blades that enabled it to meet its performance specification.

If I've remembered it correctly there had been concern raised in some quarters about how the airlines could inspect these fan blades for minor runway debris damage as it would be very difficult to detect and it could result in a significant fan failure at the point of maximum power demand.

From memory these blades were some thing like 40 to 50 lbs in weight and between four to five feet in length so if one did fail it would be difficult to contain all the fast moving parts inside the engine covers ?

I can recall attending some risk assessment training around that time where one of our colleagues had been interested in jet engine design and had reminded the class about the RB211 ( bankrupted RR ? ) and a DC10 fan blade assembly that had failed in a flight some where in the USA and severed all the control lines ?

The concern he raised was that larger items like birds were not the significant risk but prolonged damage from very small particle impacts that were not detectable by visual inspection.

If this was the first failure in a composite fan blade in twenty years then some thing else must have contributed which will be identified in due course.

We lost a number of our service engineers when the engine fell off a plane taking off from Chicago and the cause for the retaining bolt failure was traced to bad practice in using a fork lift truck in installing the engine.

The only emergency commercial landing that I witnessed from inside a plane was when we had a problem with the landing gear tires during take off from Tokyo in a 747 and they decided after circling around to continue our flight to Chicago rather than dump fuel and land back in Japan. The crew spent most of the last two hours of the flight briefing the passengers on the emergency exist protocol which the majority of passengers ignored ~ in fact over half the passengers were out of their seats and emptying the over head lockers before the front wheels had touched the runway.

The only solution is to lock all the over head compartments so they can't be opened in an emergency.

Harboda77;164156 wrote:

Its about 20 years ago that this type of engine was introduced and the commercial release of the composite fan blades that enabled it to meet its performance specification.

If I've remembered it correctly there had been concern raised in some quarters about how the airlines could inspect these fan blades for minor runway debris damage as it would be very difficult to detect and it could result in a significant fan failure at the point of maximum power demand.

From memory these blades were some thing like 40 to 50 lbs in weight and between four to five feet in length so if one did fail it would be difficult to contain all the fast moving parts inside the engine covers ?

I can recall attending some risk assessment training around that time where one of our colleagues had been interested in jet engine design and had reminded the class about the RB211 ( bankrupted RR ? ) and a DC10 fan blade assembly that had failed in a flight some where in the USA and severed all the control lines ?

The concern he raised was that larger items like birds were not the significant risk but prolonged damage from very small particle impacts that were not detectable by visual inspection.

If this was the first failure in a composite fan blade in twenty years then some thing else must have contributed which will be identified in due course.

We lost a number of our service engineers when the engine fell off a plane taking off from Chicago and the cause for the retaining bolt failure was traced to bad practice in using a fork lift truck in installing the engine.

The only emergency commercial landing that I witnessed from inside a plane was when we had a problem with the landing gear tires during take off from Tokyo in a 747 and they decided after circling around to continue our flight to Chicago rather than dump fuel and land back in Japan. The crew spent most of the last two hours of the flight briefing the passengers on the emergency exist protocol which the majority of passengers ignored ~ in fact over half the passengers were out of their seats and emptying the over head lockers before the front wheels had touched the runway.

The only solution is to lock all the over head compartments so they can't be opened in an emergency.

There is some really interesting information in the above post. Thank you.

This looks like a typical HP compressor failure. Possibly purely mechanical or maybe stall/surge initiated. What's surprising is the casing did not contain the debris from the burst; it is designed to do so.

The press always talk bo****s about anything remotely sensational. There were three experienced crew on the flight deck who follow procedures and train in the simulator for events like this. Everyone did their job, from the flight deck crew , to the cabin crew, to the ATC staff who got the fire crews out in double quick time. There were no hero's here; just well trained people doing their job and idiot passengers preventing them from doing so by stopping to pick up their cabin baggage. I guess we need to be grateful that the American who travels with his emotional support horse in the cabin wasn't on the flight.

www.guidehorse.com/news_airline_emotional_support_animals.htm

Guide dogs are allowed in the cabin. And in the states you can take your dog, and on watching the series on Miami airport someone was taking would you believe a Kangaroo in the cabin with them!!!

Certainly in BOAC/BA in the early 70's dogs were not allowed on board, maybe it was just British airlines. Remember finding a miniature dog in a handbag during a security check at Amman in 1976 ("sorry Mrs it can't go"). Flew last year on American Airlines (6 hour flight) 2 dogs on board. Re the support horse, might need a rather large poo bag on a longhaul flight!

The case of the DC10 when an engine failure severed all the hydraulic lines is the famous "united 232" at Sioux City.

Two 777's at LHR on 3 January 2019