Originally posted by Parallax Engine Explodes on an Air France Plane, Forcing an Emergency Landing - The New York Times
Originally posted by tim60 Looks like that engine will never be repaired.
Wonder which brand of engine.
Originally posted by Nicolas06 My mother was in a Iberia flight that go a problem too. The crew explaining how to brace yourself and prepare for the landing without landing gear. There were fire truck everywere on the landing strip...
But in the end, everything was fine.
My internet has been out all day....phone too......most of the Cable TV channels were OK , but a few of them were out too. I worried all day that by not being here, you guys would forget me? So now that my internet is back.....I will share a Rupert Story (relating to bad plane experiences)...so you will know it is really me and not an impostor. Who would impersonate old Rupert...that is the scary part, they would have to be a very sick pervert and very squirrely to do such a thing....you think?
It was around 1975-76. I had been out to the Left Coast in the San Fran area....I was coming back to Texas on a week night....Tuesday.....and got a Red Eye flight out of Oakland back to DFW. Around 11pm .....as I recall. You boarded at Oakland on the tarmac with a roll-up ladder...it was a small airport back then. Perfectly clear and calm night, around 68 F and no crowds or lines.
As I boarded, I noticed how empty the plane was.....as I headed for the last seats by the engines (727) I passed an old Black lady who looked to be in her late 80s on my left sitting just above the wing area and about 6-8 rows behind her a young guy, maybe 18-20, with a backpack still strapped on his back...as I passed him I wisecracked that wearing his parachute was some smart thinking.
I settled in at the port side rear seat and had a hostess strapped in next to me and two in the last seat across the aisle.We were all talking ...... two of them were not on duty..just going home to Dallas for a few days off.
Normal take off...smooth and easy....of course, being next to the engines on a 727 is never the quietest spot. Just as we left the runway and gained altitude out over the bay, there was a loud popping...short of an explosion, but close. That was followed by severe and strong vibration and the girls were obviously concerned....me too! We banked sharp to the left, almost perpendicular it seemed and then leveled out over the bay. Just as we did there was another loud noise like the first one, followed by more vibrations and some flames shooting out of the right engine for just a few seconds.
The girls were just short of a full blown panic....the old Black woman was praying loud enough to hear from halfway up the aisle....and the kid was not in sight......crouched down in his seat??
The plane continued to shake and we banked to the left again as the altitude was dropping fast......I thought we were going down in the bay. In fact, the pilot was going back to the airport runway we had just left and in a couple of minutes we were there, safely back at the departure area. I had a chance to talk with the pilot and co-pilot...neither knew what the problem was, just that they lost two of three engines. They said we were fortunate that we had almost no load in passengers or cargo, or we could be swimming in the bay.
A couple of hours later we got another plane and went on our uneventful way back to Dallas with a few new passengers over what we had originally....I didn't see the old Black lady...my bet was she had taken a taxi to the Greyhound Bus station!
Fast forward a few weeks.....my cousin was an instrument mechanic for American for 30+years. I told him this story and he knew a lot of the mechanics at Delta DFW. He said he would ask around and find out what happened? Some time later he found that both of those engines had been serviced at Oakland prior to the plane being put in service that night. There was some kind of "cup" that held a special lubricant for the turbines, and they had failed to refill them after draining for replacement. They only serviced two of the three engines...so we did have one good engine with low hours on it.
Could have been a different story...but it all worked out for us. I never worried much about flying...but after that night I was more aware of strange noises or vibrations.
Regards!