Southwest Airlines Engine Failure Results In First Fatality On US Airline In 9 Years (heavy.com)

schwit1 shares a report from Heavy: Tammie Jo Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off, damaging a window and nearly sucking a woman out of the plane. The flight was en route to Dallas Love airport from New York City, and had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia. Shults, 56, kept her cool during an incredibly intense situation, audio from her conversation with air traffic controllers reveals, while many passengers posted on social media that they were scared these were their last moments. She, with the help of the co-pilot and the rest of the crew, landed the plane safely. The NTSB reported that there was one fatality out of 143 passengers on board. Some passengers said that someone had a heart attack during the flight, but it's not yet known if this was the fatality reported by the NTSB. The woman who died has been identified by KOAT-TV as Jennifer Riordan, 43, of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Comments

Really Bad luck

[hcs_$reboot]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

"When it is infinitely improbable that something will ever happen, it will happen almost immediately." - Douglas Adams.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they could have been American made by Boeing as the story clearly points out. personally for most I things I would trust Chinese made over American made, but Boeing in general have a pretty good track record.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the design, but in this case it hasn't been all that successful. The FAA already issued an airworthiness directive (essentially the aircraft version of a mandatory recall) for these engines because of this type of failure. So either the airline didn't comply with the requirement, it wasn't sufficient to address this known defect, or the FAA gave too much leniency in the timeline (sometimes these are phased in over time to avoid grounding too many planes at once).

So, yes, bad luck to be on the plane with the exploding engine, and sitting in the path of the flying debris, but not THAT extraordinary, because the risk of the engine fragmenting was known.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Hognoxious]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body.

You got stuff spinning round like really fast. If a bit breaks off it's going to go where the fuck it wants to.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

There's scatter shields around the engines for just that purpose.

Re:Really Bad luck

[monkeyxpress]

It is a really weird failure. If you look at some of the photos around the place, you can see that it appears to be only one blade that has departed, and the rest of the fan looks remarkably undamaged. Rather than breaking free and flying into the fan housing (which is designed to contain a failure), it appears to have moved forward clear of the housing, and out through the engine cowling. Presumably from there it exited into the fuselage, or other bits of the cowling/ancillaries took out the window.

But I agree, incredibly unlucky for the passenger involved. It is still quite remarkable how safe air travel is though, all things considered.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

9 years (or most probably more...since such catastrophic engine failures ARE really rare) is a peculiar definition of "almost immediately" in this case.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dunkelfalke]

9 years for a fatality on a US airline. Uncontained engine failures happen far more often than that.
Here's one that happened just 6 months ago.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

personally for most I things I would trust Chinese made over American made

You should try your luck with a Chinese made elevator then.

Re:Really Bad luck

[torkus]

Uhm no. That's exactly the opposite of how the engines are designed.

Modern jet engines are specifically designed to contain all the debris in an engine failure - in particular all the blades which are both the most energetic and most durable. They destructively test by pyrotechnicaly detaching a blade at max RPM...go google, it's fun to watch.

Something fucked up here and parts impacted the rather fragile plane...which happens, but it not the design intent. Had the engine not contained MOST of the debris they likely would not have been able to land at all.

Re:Really Bad luck

[jabuzz]

Not really the CFM56 engine in question has a history of fan blade failures. It was instrumental in the Kegworth air disaster in 1989 that after a couple more fan blade failures lead to a redesign and over 1800 CFM56's having them replaced.

There was another uncontained fan blade failure on a CFM56 on Southwest Airlines Flight 3472 in August 2016 before yesterday's incident that was another uncontained engine failure and I will lay a large sum of money that it was a fan blade failure of a CFM56 engine.

I would say that five fan blade failures on an engine is very unusual.

This is not counting the numerous fuel flow problems and flame outs due to rain/hail ingestion this engine has suffered.

Re:Really Bad luck

[NoSleepDemon]

Or train...

Re: Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

or penis!

Re:Really Bad luck

[rfengr]

Boeing does not make engines. They choose another manufacturer at time of order. It’s probably GE, RR, or P&W.

Re: Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a CF engine made by GE

Re:Really Bad luck

[mjwx]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

This, CFM, Rolls Royce, Pratt and Whitney all design do a lot of testing to ensure their engines fail gracefully. I believe that a fan blade separation is one of the most tested scenarios. Debris is meant to be contained within the engine housing.

Re:Really Bad luck

[DontBeAMoran]

"Almost immediately" is relative. On the Universe timeline, humanity's existence just barely registers as a bleep.

Re: Really Bad luck

[DontBeAMoran]

Oh shit.... my fridge is made by GE. Is it going to explode in nine years?

Re:Really Bad luck

[slipped_bit]

"Where it is incorrect, it is definitively incorrect. In cases of major discrepancy, it's reality that's got it wrong." - Douglas Adams.

Re: Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but the water dispenser is likely to freeze up. Happened to me, and research seems to show it's quite common.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, there was someone on the wing during the flight!!

Re:Really Bad luck

[Greyfox]

Oh yeah, I used to have a room mate who was terrified of flying, despite the fact that the drive to the airport was much more dangerous statistically than flying anywhere was. It's just not something that happens on a daily basis, and that freaks people out.

Re:Really Bad luck

[hcs_$reboot]

There has been a number of versions of CFM56, and it is one of the most common turbofan aircraft engines in the world (thus when one engine is in trouble, CFM56 is more likely to be involved).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_CFM56

Re:Really Bad luck

[sycodon]

Or escalator.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Plumpaquatsch]

Boeing does not make engines. They choose another manufacturer at time of order. It’s probably GE, RR, or P&W.

Yeah, Boeing isn't responsible for the engines it puts in their planes - only Airbus is. Ughn.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dj245]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

Turbine engineer here. While engines are definitely designed so that parts do not liberate through the casing, there are plenty of incidents where that has occurred.

And explosions (as in an undesired rapid combustion of fuel and air) are indeed very unlikely. But explosions are not the most common failure mode. Blade liberation due to defects in the blade, or due to ingested material are the most common reason for a catastrophic failure.

Re:Really Bad luck

[prisoner-of-enigma]

it appears to have moved forward clear of the housing, and out through the engine cowling. Presumably from there it exited into the fuselage, or other bits of the cowling/ancillaries took out the window.

Perhaps a monstrous case of engine surge? Admittedly I've never heard of a surge so huge that it could both break a fan blade *and* impart enough energy to propel it forward into a 500mph airstream beyond the intake. If a blade merely broke off I can't see how it could move forward without something big happening behind it to give it forward momentum.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dj245]

Uhm no. That's exactly the opposite of how the engines are designed.

Modern jet engines are specifically designed to contain all the debris in an engine failure - in particular all the blades which are both the most energetic and most durable. They destructively test by pyrotechnicaly detaching a blade at max RPM...go google, it's fun to watch.

Something fucked up here and parts impacted the rather fragile plane...which happens, but it not the design intent. Had the engine not contained MOST of the debris they likely would not have been able to land at all.

That is certainly the design intent, but that is not how things work in the real world. There are plenty of incidents where a blade liberation has exited the casing. The destructive test regimen is likely dictated by someone (probably the US and/or other governments), and you can bet that the engine is designed to pass the test but be no stronger (to save weight). Pyrotechnically detaching a single blade also does not 100% match some actual failure modes. For example, there are several reasons why multiple blades may liberate simultaneously or nearly simultaneously, causing a severe rotor unbalance which can lead to *more* blade failures.

I'm not saying that the design and testing of these engines is inadequate, certainly it is good enough to limit real-world failures to a reasonable number. But it does not cover all cases or result in engine failure containment 100% of the time.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dj245]

I would say that five fan blade failures on an engine is very unusual.

As a turbine engineer, I disagree. That is an excellent track record considering that the air ingested by the engine is unfiltered and damage may occur between major inspection intervals that are not picked up by the engine instrumentation or visual inspection.

Land-based engines are generally built more robustly (since weight is not a concern), have extensive air filtration systems, similar inspection periods, less abuse (# of start/stop cycles per day), and yet they fail at a higher rate than this. 5 failures is a very low rate considering the fleet operating hours.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dj245]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

This, CFM, Rolls Royce, Pratt and Whitney all design do a lot of testing to ensure their engines fail gracefully. I believe that a fan blade separation is one of the most tested scenarios. Debris is meant to be contained within the engine housing.

Meant to be. The test is failure of a single blade in a specific portion of the engine. There are other failure modes which may be more severe. Due to weight constraints, you can bet that the casing thickness is designed to be sufficient for this test but not significantly stronger.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

The ring failed to confine the shrapnel; it's supposed too, but didn't. Last I read, this will be investigated by the NTSB

Re:Really Bad luck

[TechyImmigrant]

This is the downside of economy plus - Not far enough ahead in the cabin to be in business class and ahead of the engines. Not far enough back to be behind the engines. You're right in line.

Re:Really Bad luck

[bobbied]

These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body. Explosion are also unlikely. Having all that plus some debris break a window is really bad luck for that passenger.

It's even worse than that. This was not an uncontained engine failure by all appearances. The broken window was well behind the rotating parts of the engine and looks like it was hit by a large piece of something that left marks all around the window on the fuselage. My guess is that some large part covering the engine came up over the wing and struck the window, breaking it.

This was the *definition* of a freak accident. The chances of an engine failure like this are very slim, especially at cruse. Then, as the engine self destructs, large pieces of the engine covering depart the aircraft OVER the wig, hit the fuselage but missing any thing else vital, broke ONE window causing explosive decompression while the passenger sitting next to it is unbuckled and nearly gets pulled out by the rushing air? Your chances of getting struck by lighting, twice, are better.

Re:Really Bad luck

[bobbied]

But the evidence is pretty convincing that the engine failure was contained in the official meaning of the term.

The damage to the fuselage and broken window was well aft of the rotating parts of the engine. The damage was obviously (from the photos I've seen) a result of aerodynamic forces on some non structural part of the engine cowling blowing it up over the wind and into the aircraft. So the engine coming apart yet contained may be the trigger, but the fatal damage was from the cowling getting blown the wrong way.

Re:Really Bad luck

[bobbied]

My look at the pictures tells me that officially the engine failure WAS likely contained, in that all the rotor blades stayed within the containment system. If you look at where the fuselage was damaged it was well aft of the rotating parts of the engine. What happened was as the engine self destructed, parts of the cowling got loose and aerodynamic forces blew it over the wing and into the fuselage.

Re: Really Bad luck

[Type44Q]

personally for most I things I would trust Chinese made over American made

Here, folks, we have the rarest of creatures: a Chinese gov't shill who's never used his own nation's products.

You're in for a treat, Bub! ;)

Re:Really Bad luck

[coryhamma]

Is it possible that the Boeing planes have a longer lifespan than the other manufacturers, and the planes you were flying in were older than those other brands? It may also have to do with what airline you fly most frequently, as some airlines purchase more Airbus than Boeing.

Re:Really Bad luck

[ChrisMaple]

Aerodynamic forces will be pushing the blade forward; that's what the blade is there for. Whether that force is significant compared to centrifugal force is beyond my knowledge. Could the blade have failed gradually, twisting and pivoting forward while gradually breaking off from the hub?

Re:Really Bad luck

[jabuzz]

Except five high profile fan blade failures in a turbofan engine used on a passenger airplane is unusual.

Re: Really Bad luck

[tigersha]

Probably not but when it does make sure you are far faaaaaar away

Re: Really Bad luck

[danbert8]

Yep, common issue. Get you one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "bad luck" you mean had incriminating information on Hilary and had to die then yes...bad luck.

Re: Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Meant to be. The test is failure of a single blade in a specific portion of the engine.

In a specific portion of the engine? There is only one place where the engine blades are. Makes sense to do the test at that only place that physically exists.

Idiot.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

It is southwest. There are no reserved seats.

Re: Really Bad luck

[HornWumpus]

Turbine hubs have failed in flight. That's the part the compressor blades attach to.

There are also more than one ring of blades in a turbine.

Is the AC ironic calling others 'idiot'?

Re: Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

If you leave certain foods in it too long, they may fail and separate.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dgatwood]

Often is right. That makes two fan blade detachments on this model of engine in less than two years. And it is also the second such uncontained engine failure to puncture the body of the plane while failing, though the bits didn't make it all the way into the cabin the first time. IMO, that really should not happen, much less twice.

Call me cynical, but the more news stories I see remarking about the engine's safety record, the more concerned I become. Subjectively, it feels like we're seeing a lot more catastrophic loss of cowling lately than we used to. Maybe that's just the 24-hour news cycle skewing my perception, but I think it would be interesting to see if the materials involved have changed significantly over the last decade or two, and if that might be a contributing factor.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dgatwood]

My understanding of "contained" means that any ejected engine pieces go through the tailpipe (under the wing) where they are unlikely to do much damage. I would argue that if parts of the engine ahead of the wing were ejected upwards and/or forwards with so much force that they made it over the leading edge of the wing, it was an uncontained failure even if the part that hit the fuselage was part of the cowling severed by the fan blade, rather than the fan blade itself.

More to the point, if that's not the way it is defined, then IMO the definition is dangerously wrong. Those upwards-flying bits of cowling could just as easily have hit the leading edge of the wing and damaged various control surfaces or punctured the fuel tank, in which case we very well might have hundreds of fatalities instead of just one.

Re:Really Bad luck

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

"As a turbine engineer, I disagree." Vintage Slashdot, an *ACTUAL* expert in the field telling someone they are full of it.

Re:Really Bad luck

[jbengt]

Does an engine originally designed in the '90s count as a "modern engine"?
I recall that not long ago there was an engine failure at O'Hare. The plane was on the ground, not in the air, and debris was found more than a half of a mile away from the aircraft.

Re:Really Bad luck

[eclectro]

The blade when detached could have had a slight bent which could have caused it to "boomerang" out the engine towards the plane!

Re:Really Bad luck

[dgatwood]

The FAA already issued an airworthiness directive (essentially the aircraft version of a mandatory recall) for these engines because of this type of failure. So either the airline didn't comply with the requirement, it wasn't sufficient to address this known defect, or the FAA gave too much leniency in the timeline (sometimes these are phased in over time to avoid grounding too many planes at once).

Unless the FAA hasn't kept their website up-to-date, that airworthiness directive hasn't gone into effect yet. They proposed it back in late August.

So yes, this is, at least to some degree, a regulatory failure.

Re:Really Bad luck

[trevc]

Yep, it sucked to be her.

Re:Really Bad luck

[fustakrakich]

Blade liberation

I'm free!!

Re:Really Bad luck

[jbengt]

The uncontained engine failure a few years ago at O'Hare was reported as a GE CF6. Is that related to the CFM56?

Re: Really Bad luck

[dunkelfalke]

The lifespan of aircraft is the same everywhere and the planes are usually retired when they stop being economical compared to newer aircraft, usually just before the next required overhaul. That makes on average about 25 years.

Re:Really Bad luck

[bongey]

Turbine engineer how about coming up with a better way of inspection. Having person just look for metal fatigue is too error prone. There has been computer vision systems since the 80's that check for defects in gears. Why can you get a system to quickly x-ray the turbine blades, and run it through a computer vision system to detect defects?
Hopefully I am not talking to my cousin who is a turbine engineer , power systems though.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

The Airbuses, Embaerers and others have all been fine.

You should look up Air France Flight 447 and all the Airbus crashes that have happened when the pilot pushed the throttles forward, the a/c control system refused to do as commanded, and the a/c crashed. Don't be so smug about Airbus.

I believe in the phrase "if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going."

Re:Really Bad luck

[TechyImmigrant]

From my perspective, it's a 737.

On a Southwest 737, you can pay more and get on first. Thus getting your choice of seats.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

At the high RPM these blades turn at, there will be nothing gradual or gentle when a blade breaks off.

Re:Really Bad luck

[TechyImmigrant]

If I had been in one of those situations, I wouldn't be posting..

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

...and due to really incompetent maintenance. Heads need to roll in the hangar, not the passenger section.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Land-based turbine engines for power generation (1) run with a higher duty cycle and (2) at higher rpms and (3) don't have the turbo fan part.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dontbgay]

As a former aircraft technician, I'd hazard to say that someone saw a potential problem yet didn't want to sacrifice the flight schedule. In a culture where they place anything and everything on MEL (minimum equipment list, pretty much a deferred maintenance action) just to make the flight, people cut corners. The reason I'm a former aircraft technician and not a current technician is because of those exact concerns. When the companies and culture place more emphasis on processes and procedures than the technical abilities of their technicians, those processes and procedures are bound to fall flat sooner or later. I sleep better knowing my freedom and livelihood doesn't revolve around the lowest common denominator actually performing the inspections they sign off.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Or... These types of incidents could have something to do with some aircraft being out of the US to repair depots, where many of the "mechanics" are not fully qualified or certified and have one certified mechanic sign off on the work. Reports of loose or missing parts, fasteners, etc are apparently not uncommon.
Is that what caused the most recent incident? No idea but it is a possibility if the airline outsources its maintenance.
One would have to thoroughly examine the maintenance records for the aircraft.
Something that I'm sure is being done right now.

Re:Really Bad luck

[CohibaVancouver]

> only Airbus is. Ughn.

??!?!!?

Boeing doesn't make engines either.

Re:Really Bad luck

[TechyImmigrant]

I'm not claiming my experience is a statistically valid sample. Just sharing my experience.

But I did live half my life in Europe and the other half in the US.

Re:Really Bad luck

[cyn1c77]

This is the downside of economy plus - Not far enough ahead in the cabin to be in business class and ahead of the engines. Not far enough back to be behind the engines. You're right in line.

Technically, you have, *on average*, a lower chance of dying on an airplane if you are sitting in the back of the cabin and middle of the row.

Keep that in mind when you get that middle seat against the toilet in the back.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Maxo-Texas]

Also remember T,T,T,T,H,T,H,H,H,T,H,H,H,H,H is a perfectly plausible random toin coss result.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Hognoxious]

Yeah, they obviously work which is why nothing happened and we're not talking about it.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Maxo-Texas]

Well, they stopped my flight for 20 minutes to replace a tire last time.

And highest common denominator would mean you were paying $1,600 for tickets to fly.

Re:Really Bad luck

[TechyImmigrant]

This is the downside of economy plus - Not far enough ahead in the cabin to be in business class and ahead of the engines. Not far enough back to be behind the engines. You're right in line.

Technically, you have, *on average*, a lower chance of dying on an airplane if you are sitting in the back of the cabin and middle of the row.

Keep that in mind when you get that middle seat against the toilet in the back.

I'm usually in business class. I travel a lot. So maybe I'll go down in flames one day.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Hognoxious]

but it not the design intent.

That is certainly the design intent, but that is not how things work in the real world.

In theory, theory and practice are the same.

In practice, they aren't.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dgatwood]

True. It is possible that these two just happened to be flukes that failed earlier than usual, and the rest will fail over a longer time and at a slower rate. Of course, it's also possible that the many years with few failures for this engine were luck, and that these two failures are entropy's way of making up for lost time. That's the problem with randomness. It's hard to predict. :-)

Re:Really Bad luck

[Maxo-Texas]

Yea and we humans love to assign patterns to things.

However, I guess if we look at each flight hour as an event, we might get a large enough sample size for each engine.

I see the "argument against improbability" all the time when people are discussing war movies. It's most funny when we know the event really happened.

Fiction has to make sense but real life doesn't.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

We can only hope

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

...personally for most I things I would trust Chinese made over American made ...

Oh REALLY ?

Which industry do you work in ?

Oh, you don't work in any industry ? So your opinion is just bullshit based on your experience as an end consumer ?

Do yourself and the rest of us a favor and shut the fuck up, son.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

There you are shit posting again with yet another fake account, you revenue stream hogging disgusting fat sexist tube of lard, Christopher Dale Reimer!

You can be sure I will be watching this fake account too. I know this is you because you told me you were working on your freepass 11 file server and you are so dumb that you can't even masquerade yourself properly.

Now, I told you I was out of meds last week and you didn't even care to contact me you lazy fucker.

How many times do I have to express the emergency of the situation??????

The python click script you wrote for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work!!!!!!

You fucking incompetent python script writer!!!

When it works, I get 4000+ clicks a day on my pheromone revenue stream web site but only 5 or 6 without it!!!!

Now, it seems like you dont care and that you have abandoned me you heartless fucking pig!

Bonus:
Here is a story that creimer told me when convincing me what a hard life he had:

The tree was him and the tree knot was his butt hole!

So, his uncle packed his fat ass with lard and with his cock! Not that it makes much of a difference but anyway, there it is!

Signed:
Ethell, The girl that used to love you and now hates you, burn in hell where you belong you sexist pig!

Re:Really Bad luck

[sl3xd]

The engine throwing a fan blade isn't likely to be an issue where the airframe manufacturer is responsible at all.

I'm not going to claim to be totally familiar with the process, but Boeing and Airbus aircraft usually offer a selection of engines that can be used with their airframes, and the customer (ie. Airline) chooses which engines they want. It makes sense from an Airline's perspective -- that way they can reduce costs by having only GE engines & GE Certified Mechanics & tools, for example...

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

I've traveled a lot and every single plane that developed a serious mechanical problem while I was in it, was a Boeing. The Airbuses, Embaerers and others have all been fine.
 

Yeah, some Embraers just have de-ice boots that don't work and result in the plane becoming uncontrollable in some icing conditions.

And some models of Airbus have a control system designed by a person who should never be permitted to design anything. The system involves a complete lack of feedback between the pilot's control stick and the copilot's control stick, which can result in the crew giving
conflicting commands without even realizing it.

Maybe you're knowledgeable about something, but aircraft used for transport are not your area of expertise, that is painfully obvious.

Next time, when you don't know what you're talking about, refrain from commenting.

Re:Really Bad luck

[sl3xd]

+this.

The most popular engine on the most popular aircraft models (A320 and 737 families).

We might as well point to the number of Toyota Corolla engine problems as evidence that it's unreliable, because nobody takes a few seconds to notice that there have been more Corollas made than any other car...

Re:Really Bad luck

[sl3xd]

Um... until you've divided by number of units produced, you've got nothing. There have been a lot of CFM56 engines made and used over the past 43 years, as it's the most successful jet engine of all time.

If we use this list as a reference, the CFM56 has more than double the number of units in service than its nearest competitor, and ~4x more than the #3 slot. It's so lopsided that the CFM56 has more engines than the next two models combined (and nearly the next three).

Re:Really Bad luck

[sl3xd]

Sortof? There's some shared heritage, as GE was involved in designing both...

The CF6 came first, is much bigger, and puts out a lot more thrust. (20,000 lbf vs 68,000 lbf)

CFM is a conglomerate of the US's GE Avaition and France's Safran Aircraft Engines, and is a "team" effort, largely so the two could compete with Pratt & Whitney, which was dominant at the time.

GE initially considered only contributing technology from the CF6 into the CFM joint venture, but reconsidered and included technology from their more advanced F101 engine.

So 'related' -- there's some shared heritage, but they're very different engines.

Re: Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Or gun. ;)

Re:Really Bad luck

[Peter P Peters]

"As a turbine engineer, I disagree." Vintage Slashdot, an *ACTUAL* expert in the field telling someone they are full of it.

It's why I keep coming back :)

Re:Really Bad luck

[jpatters]

I'm siding with the self proclaimed turbine engineer.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Over a thirty-year timeframe with hundreds of millions of hours? It's only unusual if other engines have a better record AND all of these engines in question have similar designs (and it's not just the same model number hiding a number of development iterations under it like, say, the Porsche 911).

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as most engineering goes, 90s is state of the art. Since then, we've advanced the state of advertising and social media to the exclusion of all else.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dunkelfalke]

What does air conditioning do with the throttles?
Seriously though, you have no idea what you are talking about. All modern engines have FADEC, hence it is the engines decide what to do, the airplane can only suggest. No jet engine spools up instantly, all of them need some time to go from the flight idle to the TOGA power.

Oh, and by the way, if a Boeing pilot does something really stupid, the airplane will crash. If an Airbus pilot does something really stupid, the airplane won't allow it most of the time, but no protection is absolutely fool proof.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Maxo-Texas]

Wth? Why on earth would someone mod down a comment on how extreme random events are plausible with a simple non-political example of a series of random coin toses?

> Also remember T,T,T,T,H,T,H,H,H,T,H,H,H,H,H is a perfectly plausible random toin coss result.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Reziac]

I learned to be suspicious of loudly proclaimed failure rates after a crash of some 30 years ago that resulted in two very unlike news reports:

#1: [this model of commercial airliner] has a long history, this being the first fatal crash since many-years-previous.

Okay, pretty good. No worries.

#2 (delivered in an alarmed voice): [this model of commercial airliner] has a history of crashes!!

Well, yeah, so does everything if you track it long enough. (That was the last time I watched that station's news, too.)

Re:Really Bad luck

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Once the blade detached from the rotor hub it would cease to provide any forward thrust beyond whatever it could provide kinectically. The aerodynamics would work against the idea of the blade flying forward. It would instead be flung outward into the engine casing almost immediately, a casing designed to contain such a catastrophic failure.

So either the casing failed and allowed the debris to impact the fuselage or some event happened behind the fan blade that was energetic enough to blow the blade forward into an oncoming 500mph airstream.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

What does air conditioning do with the throttles?

I think you are German (or maybe Austrian) and I really like the Germanic people so I'm going to cut you some slack. On this side of the big pond, those of us who have been pilots for many, many years refer to aircraft as "a/c." It has nothing to do with air conditioning.

Seriously though, you have no idea what you are talking about. All modern engines have FADEC, hence it is the engines decide what to do, the airplane can only suggest. No jet engine spools up instantly, all of them need some time to go from the flight idle to the TOGA power.

I'd be really careful about accusing someone of having no idea what they are talking about. I probably soloed before you were born. I will refrain from saying you have no idea what you are talking about, but your knowledge of a/c (i.e., aircraft) seems to be lacking. I think you missed my point on the Airbus control system. The issue with a number of Airbus crashes was that when the pilot advanced the throttles, the flight control system disregarded the inputs and a crash resulted. One of the more famous crashes in this series was during a low pass at one of the big air shows in Europe, possibly the Paris airshow. The a/c went down in the trees and several on board died.

Oh, and by the way, if a Boeing pilot does something really stupid, the airplane will crash. If an Airbus pilot does something really stupid, the airplane won't allow it most of the time, but no protection is absolutely fool proof.

No a/c can prevent crashes from stupidity or worse (look up the intentional crash of an Airbus into the mountains somewhere in Europe) or poor training. If you think an Airbus is foolproof, look up Air France Flight 447.

Re:Really Bad luck

[RockDoctor]

What I really want to see are more commercial aircraft that have rear-facing seats. I always take a rear-facing seat if the option exists. Far, far safer in anything more sphincter-twitching than a hard landing.

Re:Really Bad luck

[dunkelfalke]

One of the more famous crashes in this series was during a low pass at one of the big air shows in Europe, possibly the Paris airshow. The a/c went down in the trees and several on board died.

And this is exactly why I tell that you have no idea what you are talking about. It is possible that you fly a piddly single piston engine aircraft where everything is controlled by Bowden cables, but commercial passenger aviation is quite different. You have written "when the pilot pushed the throttles forward, the a/c control system refused to do as commanded", and this is why you have received an explanation about what FADEC does. And as for you deluding yourself being old and experienced, I grew up in the GDR.

The crash in Basel - Mulhouse was a result of the pilot flying at flight idle power way too low and way too slow. When TOGA power was applied it was too late for the engines to spool up - the airplane crashed just a few seconds later. The Airbus ignored the pilot's control inputs because they would have stalled the aircraft immediately, resulting in the aircraft flying directly into the trees instead of skimming the tree tops that cushioned the crash. Basically the envelope protection saved most of the passengers. Doing the same stunt in a 737 would have killed most of them. Oviously the pilot blamed the envelope protection instead of himself, but if the pilot doesn't know the difference between a 100ft and a 30ft altitude, his opinion on that matter can be disregarded. Here is what happens to a Boeing pilot on an aircraft without envelope protection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Note that there were no survivors.

No a/c can prevent crashes from stupidity or worse (look up the intentional crash of an Airbus into the mountains somewhere in Europe) or poor training. If you think an Airbus is foolproof, look up Air France Flight 447.

Have you problems with reading comprehension as well? I have clearny written that no protection is full proof. But most of the time it does its job really well.

Besides, Turkish Airlines Flight 1951, Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363, Aeroflot Flight 821 and I can go on and on. Bad pilots flying a stupid airplane crash at every opportunity. Bad pilots flying an intelligent aircraft crash only if the situation is really bad.

Re:Really Bad luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Downmods are more frequent lately, not sure why (rouge mods business rival?, or just mad rouge mods?) . So it's not just you. Slashdot used to discourage downmod, and encourage upmod, but apparently current owner doesn't seem care.

Re: Bwahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

I never forgave Hillary for claiming that Obama was born in Kenya. At least Trump put that ugly story to rest.

Re:Q reported there would be a fatality today

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a lot of people thought he was crazy for predicting that the deep state would murder someone no a US airline since there hasn't been a death in almost eight years, but the deep state controls the media so he wasn't concerned about the obviousness of this assassination.

Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[quenda]

Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

It interferes with their freedom.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

For the entire flight? You can if you want, but most people (regardless of nationality) don't leave it on the entire flight.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[jabuzz]

When you have been on a flight with *REAL* turbulence; the type where if you are not seated and wearing a belt you are going to be smashed like a rag doll off the ceiling and couple of seconds later the floor of the plane you wear your seat belt on a plane for every second it is possible to do so.

Perhaps living in europe where wearing seat belts are compulsory by law in a car we are more used to wearing restraining belts for long periods of time.

Regardless not wearing a seat belt while seated on a plane is a pointless risk to take in my view.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

It interferes with their freedom.

yes, it makes it harder for them to draw their gun

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are seat belt laws in the US. Some states don't require seat belts for passengers over a given age unless seated in the front . It also varies if it is a primary or secondary violation. New Hampshire is the only state that does not require seat belts for adults at all.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself, "most people"...

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Entrope]

Every US flight I've been on in the last 10 years strongly encourages passengers to keep their seat belts buckled whenever they are seated, specifically because of the risk of turbulence. I haven't done a scientific study, but I think most passengers do stay buckled up. The most frequent exceptions would be pre-school-aged children, and sometimes their parents.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Deadstick]

Most people who've encountered clear-air turbulence do.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Perhaps living in europe where wearing seat belts are compulsory by law in a car we are more used to wearing restraining belts for long periods of time.

Wearing seat belts in a car is compulsory in every state in the US.

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[DNS-and-BIND]

How many flights a year have that? Unless you're on one of those, a seat belt isn't necessary. Every turbulent flight I've ever been on has just been bouncy. Sure, fasten your seatbelt but it's not like you'd bounce off the ceiling. You're using an extreme example.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Perhaps living in europe where wearing seat belts are compulsory by law in a car we are more used to wearing restraining belts for long periods of time.

Wearing seat belts in a car is compulsory in every state in the US.

Oops; except one, apparently.

Obviously that totally invalidates my point, lol

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[iCEBaLM]

You do realize this wasn't a car accident, right? Wearing seatbelts is compulsory in all of the US.

It is only compulsory on a plane when the crew tell you to, such as during takeoff and landing, and if they indicate during turbulence. Otherwise you can get up and move around.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[DontBeAMoran]

The shoulder strap interferes with the blood flow of my penis.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[atrex]

There's a secondary problem in America though: short uncomfortable seat belts and large sized passengers.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this relevant? Wearing a seatbelt hasn't always helped in similar circumstances in the past (e.g. United Flight 27 in 1973).

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Greyfox]

Seat belts have been compulsory here since the 1980's -- as long as I've been driving. You occasionally run across some jackass who insists that there are a couple of corner cases where the seatbelts are more dangerous, and therefore all the cases where they'll keep you from flying through the windshield and dying should be ignored. I haven't seen any research even to back up the claim that those corner cases exist, but those guys are mostly just jackasses. A lot of them die in car crashes.

I don't fly commercially that much anymore, but usually people keep their seat belts on when they're sitting down, from what I've seen. It's not like they're any less comfortable than anything else that's going on in coach. I've never seen really extreme turbulence, either, not even on small aircraft that you'd expect to be sketchier than commercial ones. We usually avoid flying on the shit days, though. I'd love to hitch a ride on that plane that deliberately flies into hurricanes. I bet that's a blast.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, it's small enough you won't notice.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

I basically hate safety belts in cars (because they are always trying to retract against you, on cheaper cars, often locking for no reason when you try to adjust), but I always wear my belt on airplanes. Why not? They're not very uncomfortable (unlike autos) and I don't want to go flying across the cabin. I suspect most people wear their seatbelts for most of the flight.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that you're leaping into the middle of a thread here, right? And that the first post talks about the connection between automobile seatbelts and this story? And that asking questions in a toddler-ish fashion like this comes across as rude? You know that, don't you?

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Plumpaquatsch]

On a different note: why do Americans want to know the name of the victim?

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

We should ban airplanes. They are killing people.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[rally2xs]

I do, or did when I used to fly. Don't do that any more due to TSA nonsense, but I always thought I'd have my brains scraped off the ceiling due to turbulence someday if I didn't.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[dj245]

There's a secondary problem in America though: short uncomfortable seat belts and large sized passengers.

The US is #1 for number of obese persons, but 19th as a % of population, behind several developed countries in the middle east.

Seat belt extenders are common, I have seen some passengers need two of them. The flight attendants automatically and discretely hand them out, if you watch closely.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[JackieBrown]

I feel like a seatbelt in a car would do more for you in the event of a crash than a seatbelt on a plane.

Yeah, turbulence is an issue. I'm not familiar with this topic. Can that be detected before the plane runs into it or not usually?

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[JackieBrown]

You're using an extreme example.

That's how we pass crazy and extreme laws. "If it save just one kids life..."

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

On Delta, for that to be true the passenger apparently has to weigh at least 300kg (660 pounds) since the length of the seatbelt is approximately 12 times as long as needed for a passenger with normal waist size.

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[MightyYar]

58 injuries per year on average. Small chance, but probably worth keeping your lap belt on loosely so you don't whack your head against the ceiling. I was on one flight where it felt like I was on a roller coaster - but fortunately a previous flight had warned our pilot and they went around checking to make sure we were buckled up and the pilot reduced speed.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

See above: so that they can stalk them on social media to fat shame them

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[ArchieBunker]

Probably because most are too fat. I mean car dealers actually have seatbelt extenders they can install for the true fatties.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Chibi Merrow]

Generally, no. A pilot can receive a report from another plane ahead of theirs on a route that turbulence were experienced, but otherwise clear air turbulence are essentially undetectable.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for trying, but you are jumping into the middle of the convo, in a rude and condescending manner. Which is frankly unwarranted, if you had read the thread instead of a single comment.

How much did the low UID account cost you on ebay?

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[jrumney]

Usually the pilot detects turbulence, switches on the seatbelt sign and proceeds to fly around it. So the passengers feel nothing and may get a false sense that it is meaningless to have their seatbelts on even when the sign is lit up.

Occasionally the turbulence won't show on the radar and it takes the pilot by surprise. When you've experienced that, you realize that the really serious turbulence comes when the seatbelt sign is off, so you keep it on all the time. The seatbelt sign only comes on during takeoff and landing, to get everyone in their seats for duty free sales, or when the pilot is already taking evasive action to avoid turbulence.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Registered Coward v2]

When you have been on a flight with *REAL* turbulence; the type where if you are not seated and wearing a belt you are going to be smashed like a rag doll off the ceiling and couple of seconds later the floor of the plane you wear your seat belt on a plane for every second it is possible to do so.

I've flown a lot and always keep my seatbelt on for just that reason. You never know when you may hit turbulence, especially clear air turbulence, which can seriously injure you if you are not belted in.

Perhaps living in europe where wearing seat belts are compulsory by law in a car we are more used to wearing restraining belts for long periods of time.

Most US stare have some sort of compulsory seat belt laws but enforcement varies and you are not likely to get stopped for not wearing a seatbelt unless you did something to piss the cop off and he needs an excuse to stop you. As for Europe, I would guess compliance varies by country. When I lived in Switzerland the cops would stop you for not wearing a seatbelt, while in Italy you could buy a fake seatbelt strap t shirt so it appeared you are using the seatbelt.

Regardless not wearing a seat belt while seated on a plane is a pointless risk to take in my view.

Without pointless risk takers there'd be no Darwin Awards...

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

most people (regardless of nationality) don't leave it on the entire flight.

Wow, I had no idea I was in the minority on this. It's easier to just leave it on, than to remember to take it off and put it back on later. I leave mine on because I'm lazy. Today I find out that most people aren't lazy. Who knew?

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Dayze!Confused]

Most of my experience has come on flights across the Pacific. On one flight the turbulence was such that the flight attendant who was walking to check that everyone had their seat belts on went a good 6-12" off the floor but was able to catch herself as her feet made contact by grabbing onto the arm of the seat next to her and landing in a crouched position. Most turbulence has not been so dramatic, but it should be taken seriously.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[jabuzz]

For me the pilot new the turbulence was coming, everyone was warned, the stewardess came round and checked everything, and then during the descent for landing it hit, there was going to be no flying around it :-)

That said it was a truly eye opening experience. I won't say it was scary because I had confidence that the plane could handle it. However I now always keep my seatbelt done up all the time. I am quite sure that everyone on that flight does the same too. As would anyone who has experienced bad turbulence. If you are not strapped down you will be tossed around the cabin like a rag doll.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[HornWumpus]

I also find that slinging my penis over my shoulder is the most comfortable way to stow it.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has work to do (~34% fatties), but here's the breaks for the lazy:

UK: ~28% fatties. (Beer'n'sex'n'chips'n'gravy, that's all a Macc lad needs.)

Canada: 28% fatties. (At least the Empire is consistent.)

France: ~24% fatties. (Cigarettes keep you thin in the face of French cooking, apparently.)

Spain: ~24% fatties. (Dat paella tho.)

Germany: 20% fatties. (Why is every fifth German a fatty? Is it the chocolate, Hans?!)

Europeans poking fun at Americans for being fat have are basically fat fucks sneering at another fat fuck for getting sprinkles and a gallon of fudge on their ice cream, instead of just getting the gallon of fudge.

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[WhiplashII]

As a pilot: my CFI told me it wasn't really turbulence until your head hit the ceiling with your seatbelt still on.

Then that kept happening to me! (I am a lot taller than him...)

Re:Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

They make larger shoulder straps too.

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Hognoxious]

It's not the feet hitting the floor on the way down that's the issue, it's your head hitting the roof on the way up. In the aisle there's a bit more headroom, but in your seat you don't have 12" clearance from the overhead lockers.

I believe a few years back a woman died from a broken neck when the plane hit some mucky air and dropped twenty feet and she obeyed Newton's first law and carried on moving horizontally ... at least for a fraction of a second.

This is why they now tell you to strap in at all times.

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Peter P Peters]

That's how we pass crazy and extreme laws. "If it save just one kids life..."

I think you are confused with talk-back radio. Actual politicians who create actual laws tend to be a little more thorough than that.

Re: Why don't Americans like wearing seatbelts?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Flying the aircraft without the 5 point harness on? Head bump deserved.

It's Trump's Fault

[multi io]

Trump credited himself for the lack of U.S. aviation fatalities during his administration, so this one is on him.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

He certainly does enjoy taking credit.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[ckatko]

You people are worse than the "trolls."

Can we go ONE thread without jumping backflips off of moving platforms in 4-D mental gymnastics to blame LITERALLY EVERYTHING on the President?

Except when the economy gets better. Then it's the previous President to thank.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[tomhath]

when dickheads like you act like the mature adults you're supposed to be

Wow, really mature comment there. How about taking your own advice.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[JoshuaZ]

Really? I was thinking he'll tweet "Passenger died on plane maintained on CHEATING OBAMA's watch! SAD!"

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[DontBeAMoran]

What do you mean, an African VISA or European Mastercard?

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Trump irrationally claimed credit for keeping airplanes safe.

Link

So, in turn he must get the blame for everything that goes wrong. He claims credit for all that isn't broken and blames everything that is on someone else.

Hell, he just said his political enemies should be jailed, yet again. This aint normal folks, and it aint right. Ignore it enough and we might not have a democracy left. He calls James Comey all kinds of vile names, when he is simply a flawed man like many of us with a questionable decision or two, but above all James is clearly an honest man.

I've no intention of ever normalizing that man. He brings Bill, yes Bill's former accusers to a debate, while having a trail of tears of his own, some of which have been paid off by his fixer.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we go ONE thread without jumping backflips off of moving platforms in 4-D mental gymnastics to blame LITERALLY EVERYTHING on the President?

Dude. Trump literally claimed credit for airline safety. This isn't mental gymnastics, its measuring him by his own chosen standards.

Trump Takes Credit for Airlines' Safety Record
President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to claim that his policies in his first year in the White House resulted in the commercial aviation industry posting its safest year ever in 2017 — though the U.S. had gone years without a U.S. commercial airline fatality before he took office.

“Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. “Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”

Trump was referring to reports that 2017 marked the safest year in global commercial aviation ever, with no passenger jet fatalities recorded. But, as Reuters reported, there were fatalities in accidents involving turboprop airplanes and cargo aircraft.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, what a monster, he also personally murdered that Bush woman.

Re: It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian loans

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[rwise2112]

Trump credited himself for the lack of U.S. aviation fatalities during his administration, so this one is on him.

Just once in a while I'm reminded why I keep reading /. Well done!

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Read what he actually said, dipshit. He doesn't take credit, he just says a good safety record is good news and is working to keep it that way (although USAToday does try to spin it differently, par for the course from them).

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[JackieBrown]

Having an affair is allot different than the rape, assault, and harassment claims against Bill

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

D's first wife,Ivana has sworn in their divorce settlement that D Raped and Assaulted her. She later changed her story when news broke, but in recent light D probably had her legally not allowed to mention the R word. Talking of scummy NDAs, we also have a Porn star claiming harassment directly linked to Trump. He's too classy to actually do it himself, obviously.

What was your point again?

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been at least assault and harassment claims against Donald Trump. As far as I know they are still in court. As far as I know there is nothing in the courts against Bill Clinton at the moment, and nothing has ever come of any such claims in the past.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[HornWumpus]

Except Bill losing his law licence for lying about it.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[JackieBrown]

As far as I know there is nothing in the courts against Bill Clinton at the moment, and nothing has ever come of any such claims in the past.

Except for the women destroyed publically that had accused him.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[orlanz]

From Reuters, the whole tweet:
“Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!”

The "best and safest year on record"; no one reaches as much as Trump. That's a follow up sentence to something he says he did. And he didn't actually do the first either. What he actually did earlier was say that there were too many regulations in Commercial Aviation and things should be privatized (failed in Congress). The most the Trump administration did related to airlines was up the security requirements in boarding. Which has been a continuation of what Bush started, & Obama added on.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

We can, when dickheads like you act like the mature adults you're supposed to be, mod this shit into the ground, and move the fuck on with no further interaction. There is no battle to be fought on /.

Some day someone is going to kick your teeth out of your head for you.

And you will deserve it.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Having an affair is allot different than the rape, assault, and harassment claims against Bill

I recall at least one claim of rape against Trump, though I don't think it went anywhere. Given that we know it is usual and customary for Trump's fixer to pay off people upset with him, or who might blab, ya gotta wonder what all we don't know....

Makes ya want a, "We'll you chose to run for public office, that means all agreements about not speaking about you are null and void." kind of thing.

Overall though, I still don't quite get this obsession with trying to make Hillary guilty of what Bill may or may not have done. I don't blame Melania for trump. Sure she likely knows what she married and at some level accepts that rather disgusting cost, but as she is not making any decisions that affect me, I don't really care.

The most Hillary is guilty of is defending her husband here, and I do not blame anyone for defending their husband or wife. Melania has a perfect right to defend Trump 100%. That's basically kinda part of a marriage.

Re:It's Trump's Fault

[david_thornley]

Clinton lied when answering a question that really had no relevance in a trial that was eventually thrown out because the plaintiff's claims didn't add up to anything illegal. The evidence was enough to conclude that he's a real jerk, but that's still legal.

There are some claims about Clinton I find disturbing, but he wasn't on trial for any of those.

Nightmare at 20,000 feet

[No Longer an AC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Nightmare at 20,000 feet

[hcs_$reboot]

It appears that In 1959 the law of physics were different...

Re:Nightmare at 20,000 feet

[Farmer Tim]

Indeed, it has since been proven both mathematically and experimentally that it’s physically impossible for Shatner to act, yet here he is doing it.

"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tammie Jo Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off

So what would have been the cowardly variant? Crashing the plane?

Adjectives have meaning. I mean, I'm glad that part of its left engine hasn't "tragically" ripped off since nowadays everything unfortunate or awful is "tragic". But what the fuck is "brave" about saving your beans? "In an extraordinary display of skills, presence of mind and composure": yeah.

There are a fuckload of reasons to admire her feat. Braveness isn't one.

Re:"bravely"?

[Viol8]

Agreed. There's far too much idiotic hyperbole in reporting these days - she was doing her job and if she didn't do it they'd all be dead including her. Its like everyone is "brave" for fighting [insert potentially terminal disease here]. If I had one I'd do my best to fight it, thats not brave , its self preservation!

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such language is typically used in these situations, and I don't recall anyone ever complaining when it's a male pilot involved. Pretty much every story on US flight 1549 called Sully Sullenberger "brave" and "heroic" for landing safely on the Hudson without engines. "Brave" is defined as "ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage". I'd say it fits.

Of course you could complain about it for a different reason here; the tone could be taken as being rather condescending, as in "she's female, yet she managed not to panic like a girl, how brave!" I don't think that's how it was meant, but it could be taken that way.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's training and professionalism. The list of pilots who panicked in an emergency situation is longer than you'd want it to be. It's OK to praise people for doing their job well, especially when it means life or death for themselves too. Doing the right thing under these circumstances is hard.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard: yes. Brave: no.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about the Brave, but defiantly skillful, professional, composed under pressure. Exactly what I would want in a pilot commanding a plane I am a passenger on.

Re:"bravely"?

[pots]

So what would have been the cowardly variant? Crashing the plane?

Possibly. The cowardly variant might have involved giving up in the face of adversity, or panicking, and either of those things could have resulted in a crash. But not necessarily. She could have cowardly landed the plane safely, crouching down in her chair, covering her face and peeking at the gauges through the cracks in her fingers.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. There's far too much idiotic hyperbole in reporting these days

You can't create icons without hyperbole, and without icons what's an agenda to do?

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sullenberger made a career risking decision that was very much non-standard and resulted in saving many lives. That's brave. This pilot followed procedure and instruction in a calm a professional manner. That's level headed competence. Both are laudable but they are not both bravery.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This pilot "bravely" decided to land. What's the alternative? Not landing? Trust me, landing was always the outcome.

No, she could have panicked and crashed the plane; landing safely was not a guaranteed outcome.

Re:"bravely"?

[gman003]

Adjectives have meaning

"Bravely" is an adverb.

Re:"bravely"?

[arth1]

You can't create icons without hyperbole, and without icons what's an agenda to do?

Could that lead to agenda discrimination lawsuit?

Re:"bravely"?

[mjwx]

Tammie Jo Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off

So what would have been the cowardly variant? Crashing the plane?

Adjectives have meaning. I mean, I'm glad that part of its left engine hasn't "tragically" ripped off since nowadays everything unfortunate or awful is "tragic". But what the fuck is "brave" about saving your beans? "In an extraordinary display of skills, presence of mind and composure": yeah.

There are a fuckload of reasons to admire her feat. Braveness isn't one.

You must be fun at parties.

The pilot is brave because they kept extremely cool and professional under pressure. The definition of bravery is:

1. endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behaviour) without showing fear.

. I'd say that brave is definitely an apt description of the pilot and crew. I highly doubt that Terry Toughperson behind a keyboard on /. would have been able to maintain their composure.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brave is not the same as bravely. One describes the action and the other the person.

One is an adjective, and one is a adverb. However, they both have the same definition.

Re:"bravely"?

[e_pluribus_funk]

Maybe there was a word limit on the article and the editor changed "incredible composure and presence of mind" to "bravely".

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. What the fuck else was she going to do? Bail out of the cockpit?

Re:"bravely"?

[edtice1559]

Brave may not be the best term, but the history of aviation disasters tell us that when things go wrong, some pilots rise to the occasion and others lose their minds. See the Colgan air disaster where the the pilot panicked and pulled up against a stall. Of the Air France flight where they lost instrument panel and the copilot might as well have been giving random input. OTOH see the Concorde disaster where the pilots were informed that their entire aircraft was engulfed in flames and they calmly kept flying. So maybe brave isn't the ideal adjective, but the pilot's ability to maintain composure and do the right thing means the difference between life and death and so we should use some positive word to describe those who execute so well in these situations.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck off already.

How the fuck did you see any sexism in any of this.

Grow up, you're making a fool of yourself.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd go for heroic - as in heroically saved a plane full of people.
Superman isnt really brave when he brings down a gang of bad guys with guns (he knows the guns cant hurt him) but it's still a heroic thing to do.

Re: "bravely"?

[TheReaperD]

They also have to deal with the ever shrinking vocabulary of the average person in the United States due to decades of neglect, and outright contempt from some on the right, of the public education system.

Re:"bravely"?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So what would have been the cowardly variant?... Adjectives have meaning.

Brave:

1. 1: Having (or showing) the mental (or moral) strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty.
2. 2: Making a fine show
3. 3: Excellent, splendid

Meanwhile, "cowardly" doing something would be doing it while showing disgraceful fear. I suppose that would be apparent in her voice and word choices.

Re:"bravely"?

[hcs_$reboot]

In this case, a cockpit seat is a better place than a passenger seat.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the female's natural instinct in time of trouble is to break down like a child to receive the pity and assistance of the males, I would say a female taking charge in a disaster should be lauded more than a man (because it is contrary to her instinct).

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that this is literally they evolutionary advantage to ADHD. The adrenaline starved ADHD brain is scatterbrained, can't focus, can't find purpose. But, once an emergency hits, flooded with adrenaline, the ADHD brain kicks it into high gear. While non-ADHD brains might be overwhelmed and panic, the ADHD brain, chronically underwhelmed, is finally at home with a proper balance of brain chemicals (or a better balance for that person). ADHD is literally an evolutionary advantage for when shit hits the fan (and a disadvantage when trying to sit still at a wedding or work or whatever).

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record, you brought up gender.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's called a crash landing. Landing was never out of the question. The plane was always going to come out of the sky.

But we could also say, "She bravely elected to preserve her own life and safely landed the plane." She took no additional risk in attempting to land the plane. There was literally no other rational option.

Re:"bravely"?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

The proper way to describe her actions -- and Sullenberger for that matter -- would be "calm and professional". Brave and heroic? I have difficultly understanding how one can be "brave" in a situation where there is no alternative but to take the action that was taken.

The opposite of brave is "cowardly". Could she have "cowardly" refused to land the plane? Nope. Gravity kinda has a say in this equation. Pilots have a saying: takeoffs are optional but landings are mandatory. Sure, pilots can always panic and perform their jobs poorly but the opposite of this is not bravery; it is professionalism and competence, but not bravery. Bravery would be something like what Graham Pearson did in the Kegworth crash of 1989, choosing to go into a life-threatening situation to save crash survivors.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you fly a multiple engine airplane, one of the main things you train for is a single engine failure. And if you have to have one, cruising at altitude is the place to be -- you got altitude and time to deal with it. The bad times to lose an engine are takeoff and landing. I'm not dissing the pilot here, she did a good job, but in the end she was just doing the job she was there for -- if there were never any airborne emergencies then the autopilot could fly the aircraft from takeoff to landing (I hear that the pilot has to apply the wheel brakes when landing, but I'm sure that could be automated, too.)

Re: "bravely"?

[JackieBrown]

Good job getting political! It's important to work that in every chance you get regardless of relevancy so that when you actually have an on-topic point we are already desensitized to your posts.

Re:"bravely"?

[ArchieBunker]

The truth is the captain would have landed the plane the same way regardless if it was filled with passengers or only himself.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what the fuck is "brave" about saving your beans?

Being "brave" means you keep your wits about you (don't panic) and keep doing what needs to be done (follow your training) even though you're scared shitless. If you aren't scared, you aren't brave.

Re:"bravely"?

[MightyYar]

Of course you could complain about it for a different reason here; the tone could be taken as being rather condescending, as in "she's female, yet she managed not to panic like a girl, how brave!" I don't think that's how it was meant, but it could be taken that way.

I did take it that way. There was a very similar incident in August 2016 (flight 3472)... same plane type, same failure, ruptured fuselage with depressurization, emergency landing. No fatality, but that was just luck. I don't recall seeing the pilot profiled in the news, nor any praise for his or her bravery or skill except from some passenger quotes. The coverage, in my opinion, is very much "oooo, a girl!". Because apparently a well-trained female doing her fucking job competently is still "news". Even the Wikipedia pages show this bias, with the flight 1380 page declaring the name of the pilot twice and the flight 3472 page not mentioning the pilot at all.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. There's far too much idiotic hyperbole in reporting these days - she was doing her job and if she didn't do it they'd all be dead including her. Its like everyone is "brave" for fighting [insert potentially terminal disease here]. If I had one I'd do my best to fight it, thats not brave , its self preservation!

I would say that remaining calm and professional while carrying out ones duty in the face of a dangerous situation where lives are on the line is the very definition of "brave". I don't think the word is misused here.

Re:"bravely"?

[ripvlan]

Came here for technical news - left with a grammar lesson. :-P

Re:"bravely"?

[Viol8]

Bravery is where you have a choice whether to put yourself in a dangerous situation and you do so knowing your life may be at risk. When you have NO choice in the matter its not bravery , its simply being in a situation you do your best to get out of.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This incident was more than a single engine failure. While cruising at altitude may have made it simpler to control the craft it didn't help with fuselage compromise. This was an incredibly stressful situation that, fortunately, very, very few pilots have to face. She probably couldn't have handled it better.

Re:"bravely"?

[dryeo]

Well in Sullenberger's case, he did bravely stay in the airplane until everyone else was out, including walking through it at least twice. While still expected behaviour, there has been cases of Captains panicking and being among the first off the plane.
The actual piloting, I've heard pilots say that in these kinds of situations that they didn't have time to do much thinking or panicking, just flying to the best of their ability.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anne Thwacks]

Given that the female's natural instinct in time of trouble is to break down like a child to receive the pity and assistance of the males

Its not instinct. They only do that when taught to do so by a diet of Hollywood movies.

Re:"bravely"?

[HornWumpus]

What? He was going for a runway in New Jersey. Worked the math, realized it was out of range and ditched in the water. Sullenberger also followed procedure in a calm and professional manner.

Career risking? Your giving him credit you're not giving her. They were both saving their own asses as well as the passengers' and crews'.

Re:"bravely"?

[meta-monkey]

That was my take reading the news coverage. Pilot did a great job, but the media's all gushing because "but it's a girl!!!" Yes? And? Women can fly planes too. This wasn't a shock to any of the rest of us.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravery is where you have a choice whether to put yourself in a dangerous situation

Dictionary definitions of bravery do not require a choice, but I think there is a connotation. I would go with "courageous" rather than "brave" to describe Capt. Shults' handling of this situation.

Re:"bravely"?

[nanter]

Staying calm, cool and collected in a life threatening emergency situation such as this requires bravery. That's why she's appropriately being called brave.

Re:"bravely"?

[Shotgun]

Actually, not to be a wet blanket, but the skill set wasn't that extraordinary, either. She still had an engine running. If it had happened on takeoff, saving the plane would have been more significant, but this engine gave up enroute. Standard training to get a multi-engine rating is that you be able to control the plane with one engine out.

This was literally a basic part of her job.

Re:"bravely"?

[Shotgun]

It's not always a landing. Sometimes it's a "ditching". When it IS a landing, a good one consists of one where everyone on board survives. A GREAT landing is one which permits the plane to fly again.

Re: "bravely"?

[ChrisMaple]

"The public education system" causes "the ever shrinking vocabulary of the average person in the United States", which is why it has earned "outright contempt from some on the right".

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're faced with a life or death situation for not just you but over one hundred other people, and you manage to get everyone home safely and not cave into the immense pressure of the situation.

You manage to stay calm in the knowledge that one tiny mistake could make the already life threatening situation deadly...

Yep, I'd call that brave.

Google: brave dictionary
verb
1.
endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behaviour) without showing fear.

I mean seriously, insightful 5 for a nitpicking comment that isn't even accurate.

Re: "bravely"?

[TheReaperD]

Sorry but, worked in both public and private education but, not as a teacher. The cause for the lowering standards is actually the parents of the students. The over-entitled helicopter parents that demand that their perfect little snowflakes get better grades, despite not doing the work because it'll hurt their self-esteem and college entrance chances. Since the school board is elected by said parents, because they're the only people that care who is elected to the school board, they put pressure on administrators to force the teachers to lower their standards. And if you think this problem is better in private education, boy have I got a surprise for you. They just don't have public records requirements so they can cover it up better.

Re:"bravely"?

[DamnOregonian]

The opposite of brave is "cowardly". Could she have "cowardly" refused to land the plane? Nope.

Yes. In fact she could have. People in life-or-death situations cave to the pressure and cowardly retreat into a ball every day. Happens to soldiers, can happen to airline pilots.
Hell, I have seen it happen to an RC helicopter pilot.

Re:"bravely"?

[DiEx-15]

Tammie Jo Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off

So what would have been the cowardly variant? Crashing the plane?

Adjectives have meaning. I mean, I'm glad that part of its left engine hasn't "tragically" ripped off since nowadays everything unfortunate or awful is "tragic". But what the fuck is "brave" about saving your beans? "In an extraordinary display of skills, presence of mind and composure": yeah.

There are a fuckload of reasons to admire her feat. Braveness isn't one.

You know what word also has meaning?

The word "Dictionary"

Bravery : The quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty : the quality or state of being brave : courage showing bravery under fire

So I got a question for you:

Who died and made you God? Because the last I checked, people did have a right to call this stuff bravery.

However, this doesn't surprise me. We live in a society where anybody can criticize another person without knowing jack shit about them or what it took to do what they did either mentally or physically. They don't have a leg to stand on. So they find the most pedestrian thing to criticize.

Also the fact this was posted by an AC is just richly ironic.

Re:"bravely"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Elmira, Williamsport, Scranton-Wilksbarre, Harrisburg... Why would the brave pilot fly all the way from the Southern Tier of NY to Philly? It's not difficult to land that plane with one engine and pilots are required to show proficiency doing it in a simulator on a regular basis. Nothing particularly challenging or heroic in doing your job the way you were trained.

Re:"bravely"?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Well in Sullenberger's case, he did bravely stay in the airplane until everyone else was out, including walking through it at least twice.

That was his choice, and that is the defining characteristic of bravery.

Re:"bravely"?

[BobSteinVisiBone]

So what would have been the cowardly variant? Crashing the plane?

Perhaps so. In Software for Your Head Jim McCarthy, wrote:

"Courage entails making wise choices while feeling fear."

If brave can be defined in a similar way, then anyone who proves useful in an emergency deserves the word.

Re: "bravely"?

[TheReaperD]

I really did mean just a limited number on the right but, I can see how many would just see "right" and remove the limiting qualifiers out of habit. Most conservatives are actually reasonable and see the need for public education but, may have some disagreements about how it is managed (not unjustified). It's mostly political insiders and a few unhinged far-right that are outright against public education and they tend to attack it with amazing vitriol.

Credit/blame

[stealth_finger]

So if ol' Trump was taking credit for 0 airline deaths in 2017 (https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/donald-trump-commercial-aviation-no-deaths-2017-regulation-passenger-flight-safety-twitter-a8138116.html) even though it's nothing really do with him does that mean this is on him? Somehow I doubt it.

Lies, all lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have forgotten all the small airline plane crashes with fatalities. http://tdn.com/travel/ntsb-faults-flight-crew-training-for-fatal-alaska-crash/article_fce77ee2-899a-5969-880d-6a30eae5602b.html

Re:Lies, all lies.

[rfengr]

Yes. General aviation in the USA has a crash about every 3 days.

Re:Lies, all lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

And most of the news titles for the issue were 100% incorrect as well. A lot of the titles said "Engine explodes as plane makes emergency landing". That means the plane was in the process of an emergency landing when an engine also exploded. That is completely not what happened. The engine exploded before they decided to have an emergency landing. No wonder credibility in the news keeps tanking. It's clear from reading the articles they knew the titles are false, but they published them that way anyway. Do editors no longer exist?

Re:Lies, all lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bump - +1 Dead On. Editors do Exist , they don't care that the head line is "False".. misleading.. It's click-bait in print.

Re:Lies, all lies.

[Nkwe]

Did the engine actually explode? or did it just break apart? They are both serious events when you are in the air, but they are not the same thing.

Re:Lies, all lies.

[hcs_$reboot]

You must be new here, but actually there is an article attached to this story.

Re:Lies, all lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping to find the quote I read one from a former Newspaper writer from a prominent NY newspaper writer. When asked about false headlines. He recalled an incident where he had submitted an article and suggested headline and it was changed (trimmed) and made to be less than truthful. When he complained the editor said "The headline is there to catch their attention. If they want the truth they can read the article. "

Re:Lies, all lies.

[HornWumpus]

You must be new here. FA reader...

Re:Lies, all lies.

[Nkwe]

You must be new here, but actually there is an article attached to this story.

By UID you are newer here that I am. Anyway...

I was responding to a post that talked about incorrect news titles and reporting. I did read the article and while the article did talk about "exploding", the rest of the article didn't really support the technical definition of "explosion". Wikipedia opens with:

"An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases."

There is nothing in the descriptions I have read so far that indicate that this was a fuel related explosion (which would meet the definition). It appears that a fan blade came loose and tore apart the engine. There is the concept of a mechanical explosion where pressure in a sealed container causes the container to fail violently, but loose parts flying around in a mechanical system don't really fit the definition either.

I would normally ignore bad use of the term "explosion" as it is a common term for something bad happening, but since the specific comment I was replying to talked about bad / inaccurate reporting, I figured I would add support.

I am not sure what think bravely means.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, "bravely" means exactly what we get from hearing the pilot in her interaction with air traffic control. According to the dictionary brave is someone: ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. So, she definitely seemed ready and showed courage (presence of mind and composure as you yourself say) in the face of danger.

Brave does not mean removing the headphone jack from a phone ("dick move" is more appropriate), brave does not mean jumping in the flames for fun ("reckless" is more appropriate).

I was impressed by that audio, the air traffic guy seemed much more upset when he started hearing about parts of the plane missing etc than the pilot. If she was not brave, her voice would either start braking or show panick, and the outcome of the ordeal might not have been as favorable for the passengers.

Re:I am not sure what think bravely means.

[Shotgun]

I was impressed by that audio, the air traffic guy seemed much more upset when he started hearing about parts of the plane missing etc than the pilot. If she was not brave, her voice would either start braking or show panick, and the outcome of the ordeal might not have been as favorable for the passengers.

Maybe she was so composed because she still had a working engine, and airport well within range, and hours of simulator time practicing that exact same situation?

Re:I am not sure what think bravely means.

[DamnOregonian]

And was a Navy F18 pilot, etc, etc, etc.

Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

> These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body.

This statement is factually wrong.

When an uncontained engine failure happens - and they do happen - fragments of the blade can travel in any direction. It is random. In this case it looks like a piece went through the window. In that case, it is lucky no passengers were killed by a fragment.

If you want to read just how badly a plane can be damaged by an uncontained engine failure, read up on what happened to QF32:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32

To give you an idea of how bad it was, the A380 has redundant cabling for controlling engines, etc, and fragments from the engine explosion took out both primary and secondary paths. It is a amazing that plane landed. And if the pictures are anything to go by in this scenario, the plane may also have suffered damage to control surfaces or wiring that also hampered flying the aircraft.

Re: Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, fuckwit, simple physics will tell you is not random. The fan blades are moving in a very well ordered direction, and Newton figured out the rules. Relative to the airframe, they depart the engine radially in a very narrow set of paths.

Re: Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

The radial angle at which a fragment of a fan blade leaves the engine is random. The fragments may not fly out in a totally random direction (forward/backward/etc) but whether they go straight up, straight down, straight into the side of the plane or through the wing, that is random. So whilst the range of random values for the exit velocity is not in any direction, it is also not prescribed and as it is not prescribed, it is random.

Most of the circle is empty space meaning that a piece will most likely not hit the plane but some of it is plane body and wing.

Re: Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

I managed to piece together the fact that blade fragments bouncing off different surfaces after separation (including other blades) would result in unpredictable enough paths to justify the statement "fragments of the blade can travel in any direction." Why couldn't you?

Re:Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[bobbied]

> These engines are manufactured a way not to propel debris towards the body.

This statement is factually wrong.

When an uncontained engine failure happens - and they do happen - fragments of the blade can travel in any direction. It is random. In this case it looks like a piece went through the window.

It does not appear so to me. The problem with your theory is this. The broken window is well aft of all of the rotating engine parts and couldn't have been broken by an uncontained fan blade. It looks more like a piece of the engine cowling was driven by aerodynamic forces over the wing and it bounced off the aircraft breaking the window and leaving marks in the blue paint under it too.

The engine failure looks like it was contained, but the cowling was damaged, departed the aircraft due to air flow and caused the damage further aft.

Re:Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

united flight 232 is another example

Re:Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

His statement is factually right. The fan case is made thicker along the directions where a fan blade ejection would penetrate the passengers, damage the landing gear, or any flight controls. Alternatively, the manufacturer can place components outside of the the fan blade ejection volume. The manufacturer could place people outside of the ejection volume, but that would result in a fairly empty airplane forward of the wing.

Yes, the trajectory of a particular fan blade ejection is random. The steps taken to mitigate the ejection are not. The engines are designed in away to disallow debris flying toward the body.

source: former propulsion engineer at a large aircraft manufacturer who didn't work on the fans, but did listen to a lot of good scuttlebutt about the engines.

Re:Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[dgatwood]

The engine failure looks like it was contained, but the cowling was damaged, departed the aircraft due to air flow and caused the damage further aft.

The blades aren't supposed to hit the cowling. That part isn't designed to contain fan blades flying at full speed. But in two consecutive engine failures for this exact model of engine (plus multiple failures of previous generations of this engine), it has apparently been forced to try to do so and failed.

I would speculate that they will find two design problems here: a containment ring that doesn't extend far enough forwards to protect the cowling from failed blades and a cowling that breaks apart catastrophically once damaged. Given that both accidents have involved planes sold to the same airline, it makes me wonder if Southwest specified carbon fiber for the cowling instead of the aluminum that is typically used, but that's pure speculation.

Re: Uncontained Engine Failures Happen.

[jbengt]

No, fuckwit, simple physics will tell you is not random. The fan blades are moving in a very well ordered direction, and Newton figured out the rules.

Yeah, because there's no possibility that a blade could ricochet or another piece of debris could carom off in a different direction after a collision with the rotating blades.

Hey BeauHD

[tomhath]

Was the pilot a woman? It isn't clear from your summary. Maybe you should have pointed it out a few more times to make sure nobody missed it.

Re:Hey BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

If the pilot had been male, it would have been written the same way.

Thomas Joe Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off, damaging a window and nearly sucking a woman out of the plane. The flight was en route to Dallas Love airport from New York City, and had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia. Shults, 56, kept his cool during an incredibly intense situation, audio from his conversation with air traffic controllers reveals, while many passengers posted on social media that they were scared these were their last moments. He, with the help of the co-pilot and the rest of the crew, landed the plane safely. The NTSB reported that there was one fatality out of 143 passengers on board. Some passengers said that someone had a heart attack during the flight, but it's not yet known if this was the fatality reported by the NTSB. The woman who died has been identified by KOAT-TV as Jennifer Riordan, 43, of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Re:Hey BeauHD

[MightyYar]

Excellent speculation. Now find the name of the pilot who successfully landed the almost identical Southwest flight 3472 after engine failure and fuselage rupture. Essentially the same incident, with the exception of pure luck that no one was hit by the shrapnel.

Re:Hey BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

That one might have been. The first coverage I saw said "the female pilot", and I doubt it would have been written as "the male pilot" in the hypothetical case.

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a topgun quote.

I don't understand the damage

[ThomasD3]

When you look at the photo: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/da... It looks like a single blade is missing. If the blade breaks and flies to the cabin, like a dagger, ripping things on the way, I can understand. But how did the whole front cowling get ripped in all directions? or did the wind rip pieces after the structure was damaged?

Re:I don't understand the damage

[bobbied]

When you look at the photo: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/da... It looks like a single blade is missing. If the blade breaks and flies to the cabin, like a dagger, ripping things on the way, I can understand. But how did the whole front cowling get ripped in all directions? or did the wind rip pieces after the structure was damaged?

Think about it this way... That one blade broke loose and suddenly the whole engine is imbalanced and still turning at tens of thousands RPM's. I can see the front fan getting pretty wobbly as everything slows down, shredding the intake cowling.

Also, look at where the broken window is. It is well behind the rotating parts of the engine... I don't think it was broken by a fan blade back there, more likely it was bumped by parts of the cowling driven by aerodynamic forces as they departed the aircraft. There is a tell tail mark in the blue paint just under the window too, making me think that damage was caused by something much larger than a fan blade.

Re:I don't understand the damage

[Solandri]

The blades spin at such high RPM that each one has more rotational energy than a moving car. The engine casing is designed to absorb all that energy (or at least try to) in a failure, but there's a significant amount of distortion and violence in the process. The parts you see missing are mostly cosmetic - they're there mainly to smooth the airflow over the internal parts of the engine.

Re:I don't understand the damage

[Shotgun]

Also, the plane is flying somewhere on the order of 600mph. That makes "hurricane force wind" seem like a summer breeze.

Re:I don't understand the damage

[supertall]

You're assuming the blade shoots cleanly out radially, but at the rotational speeds involved it likely was clipped by subsequent fan blades like a chunk of ice in a blender and propelled forward where it destroyed part of the cowling. Once that structure is damaged the aerodynamic forces would rip it apart.

Some Blade Failure Tests

Re:Q reported there would be a fatality today

[DontBeAMoran]

Well of course he knows. Q is omnipotent. I'm just puzzled why he's here in 2018 instead of messing with Starfleet officers in the future.

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this on Slashdot?

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

#RussianTroll

Re:Q reported there would be a fatality today

[Plumpaquatsch]

Well of course he knows. Q is omnipotent. I'm just puzzled why he's here in 2018 instead of messing with Starfleet officers in the future.

It's because Nero changed future history, and Picard is now (or rather will be) the sexy counsellor on the USS GaySulu.

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even creimer could beat Trump

GE Appliances

[Anonymous Coward]

GE Appliances was bought by Haier, a cheapo Chinese appliance manufacturer. Which means it's not built well enough to explode, but it will probably burn your house down.

Re:GE Appliances

[Farmer Tim]

That’s a feature, not a bug: a fridge that automatically reheats.

Still quite safe.

[BirdBrained]

Given that there were between 750-800 million passengers per year during the past nine years without a fatality, I still like the odds.

Source: US DOT

Onboard safety presentations

[thegarbz]

Okay to make a bit of light on this tragic situation has anyone else seen the footage coming out of various organisations from the disaster. The selifies are especially terrifying. Example: https://heavy.com/news/2018/04...

Doesn't anyone know how to use a god damn oxygen mask? I mean it has been a staple part of flight safety demonstrations since the 80s, but really look at the selfies, NO ONE seems to know how the oxygen masks work. Like people have them attached to their chins and stuff, I'm genuinely surprised no one is wearing one like a hat.

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[hcs_$reboot]

Nobody suffered any air-less injury, so it seems the mask works however you use it.

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[Nidi62]

Doesn't anyone know how to use a god damn oxygen mask? I mean it has been a staple part of flight safety demonstrations since the 80s, but really look at the selfies, NO ONE seems to know how the oxygen masks work. Like people have them attached to their chins and stuff, I'm genuinely surprised no one is wearing one like a hat.

I like the guy with the man-bun that couldn't even be bothered to take out his ear buds and doesn't even have the strap around his head. And of course, as you mention, not a single person has the mask covering mouth and nose like you are supposed to.

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[danbert8]

Or they got lucky that the plane was able to descend fast enough to keep their brains from asphyxiating...

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[thegarbz]

Nobody suffered any air-less injury, so it seems the mask works however you use it.

Or more likely the plane didn't depressurise to the point where people needed to rely on masks to get sufficient O2.

I shot myself in the head today but didn't die. Clearly bullets won't kill you if you shoot yourself in the head. See the stupidity of the logic you are employing?

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[thegarbz]

I'm quite sad no one is smoking a cigarette. It would be the perfect "no fucks given" meme.

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[Anonymous Coward]

I shot myself in the head today but didn't die.

You should try it again, hopefully the next time it will work.

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[DamnOregonian]

A blown out window at 30,000 feet... Ya, it depressurized enough for people to need oxygen. Takes 5-8 minutes to reasonably descend down to 10,000 feet (without killing more people)
Now, there's a good chance you'd survive the oxygen deprivation at that altitude for that duration of time, but you could still definitely lose consciousness.

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[thegarbz]

Tue making a lot of assumptions about what happened. Specifically note the lack of panic in the photos. Not a 30000ft pic

Re:Onboard safety presentations

[DamnOregonian]

The blowout happened as the plane was ascending past 32,000 feet.
I'm not making any assumption.

Re:Q reported there would be a fatality today

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fairly certain there is a least 1 fatality every day. I'd be more impressed if he had predicted a day with zero fatalities and it came true.

Re:Hillary!

[ChrisMaple]

The use of the word "bravely" stuck me also as peculiar; after all, what choice did she have? But on reflection, it's accurate, if perhaps superfluous. If she had panicked, things could have turned out much worse.

What bothered me about your post is your denigration of her motives; your attack is mean and unjustified.

Many people in emergencies, particularly if they are trained, do what is proper for the situation without first analyzing their motives. First, do what's right.

Tammie Jo Shults

[sycodon]

Ex-Navy F-18 pilot.

Nothing teachers you about staying calm like landing on a pitching deck at night...in the rain and high winds.

Re:Tammie Jo Shults

[Anonymous Coward]

...with diarrhea.

Re:Tammie Jo Shults

[Peter P Peters]

Ex-Navy F-18 pilot.

Nothing teachers you about staying calm like landing on a pitching deck at night...in the rain and high winds.

Ok you win. Where can this thread possibly go from here...

Re: Hillary!

[tigersha]

She landed a plane after the engine exploded with a hole in the fuselage. She will be flying Airforce 1 after this.

Hey, it tells you a lot

[Cajun Hell]

Adjectives have meaning.

Incredible. You know this, and yet you completely overlook all the information packed into the words.

Yes, these words have a lot of information. They're subtly trying to tell you that the pilot is destined to die of cancer.

It works like this: braveness is a thing that you find in every single person who ever tragically died of cancer. These are tragedies, and all tragedies are caused by character flaws (hamartia), which psychically manifest in the cells. The flaw brings them down, but they always face it courageously in spite of their fears. That is: bravery and cancer-causing character flaws are linked. While the cause/effect hasn't been sorted out yet, we're pretty sure that either bravery causes the flaw that causes the cancer, or the flaw that causes cancer also causes bravery.

Anyway, if someone does something brave, that tends to imply they have cancer. Here you are, getting all pedantic while the press is trying to tastefully slip you interesting information without getting all sensational or embarrassingly personal about it. Shame on you.

CPR heart attack

[Anonymous Coward]

They performed lengthy CPR on the businesswoman who got half sucked out of the passenger window. The other passenger(s) probably assumed it was a heart attack case, when it was actually extensive trauma. So that's where the "heart attack" description comes from.

Re: Hillary!

[HornWumpus]

Vermin Supreme was the relatively sane option.

What a shitty article

[Anonymous Coward]

They say he claims credit, but then don't ever quote him taking credit. Anyone have a reference? I know it's going to be hilarious.

I assume it was on Twitter. They do show one tweet that is sort of related, but obviously isn't the one they're talking about. Or maybe his credit-taking wasn't on Twitter and there's some kind of copyright problem, where they can't show it?

Tell tale

[Anonymous Coward]

tell tail

Tell tale. As in, "this mark tells the tale of what happened". But for all intensive purposes, it's a doggy dog world out there and I have zero taller ants for eggcorns.

Re:Q reported there would be a fatality today

[sexconker]

Q did not post either of those things.

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

She's brace because pilots have parachutes. She literally could have just left everyone to die.

A minor correction

[fustakrakich]

It was the first accident fatality ever of a Southwest passenger. The other accident killed a kid in a car outside the airport fence. Not too bad for an airline that has been operating for 47 years.

What is up with the "hero" and "brave" crap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody said anything about "brave" and "hero" in the last accident like this:
http://edition.cnn.com/US/9607/08/delta.accident/index.11a.html

Because guess what? Pilots were just doing their job.

I'm going to start demanding that my boss calls me "brave" and "hero" for doing my damn job too.

Easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Just spend one billion dollars and install bullet-proof windows on all airliners.

Re:Hillary!

[Bartles]

She's brave because she overcame the disability of having a vagina. Obviously.

Re:Q reported there would be a fatality today

[Anonymous Coward]

it's all a Temporal Iconian Plot

"...these were my last moments on earth"

[edi_guy]

Good work to the pilot and co-pilot. Well trained and performed admirably under pressure.

Now to the passengers. What does it say about the priorities of us American's that when confronted with "literally these were my last moments on earth" the finality of our lives, that we just want to broadcast it through Zuck's website?

"I Facebook LIVED the entire experience. I literally thought these were my last moments on earth. It was so terrifying!!”"

No I don't want to sit and reflect, don't want to think of my family & friends, pray, reminisce, hell even hold the hand of the human being sitting next to you. Instead I want to shakily focus a cellphone camera on my face, so as to create a snuff tape for the masses. My surviving family will certainly enjoy that memento...What is wrong with people?

Re:Hillary!

[DamnOregonian]

They could crap their pants, cry or laugh...didn't matter

The pilot dealt with the dangerous situation while exhibiting bravery (not crapping her pants, crying, or laughing)

Re:Hillary!

[DamnOregonian]

I'm confused. Are you stupid? Do you not know what bravery means??
If the woman kept it together at all after a the front half of an engine exploding, firing hypersonic projectiles into the cabin causing its very rapid depressurization (enough to pull a woman through a window) then she exhibited bravery. Since she continued flying the plane, she bravely flew the plane. If she landed with shit in her pants like I likely would have, then perhaps she didn't bravely fly the plane.

Re: Hillary!

[Hognoxious]

Did you hear how calm her voice was when she told ATC about the damage? My wife would be shrieking and panicking more than that if we'd run out of a particular kind of ham for the kids' lunches.

Blade off events happen, luck can't save you

[LeftCoastThinker]

These engines are jacketed in a kevlar or fiberglass honeycomb composite designed to absorb the energy of a blade-off event and protect the aircraft as well as the passengers inside from fragments. Over time kevlar degrades and I would assume that there is a maintenance change out for the ballistic jacket of these engines.

See here for video of the damaged engine. Note that the front of the ballistic honeycomb (two green layers with a metal layer in between) has been shattered. (NTSB video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If you want to see what it should look like during and after a blade off event, check out this video: (A380 blade off test) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The airlines have been pushed for decades towards lower and lower prices, but sometimes it is better to spend some extra money on safety inspections and maintenance overhauls.

In my opinion, unless violation of rules or gross negligence by a specific employee or employees can be shown, C level executives and the board of directors for all corporations should be personally and if appropriate criminally liable for the actions, accidents and/or criminal actions of the companies that they run.

If this turns out to be a maintenance shortage or an improperly stored replacement cowling or a blade with a known problem that wasn't pulled due to either short spares or flight schedule, someone should go to prison for negligent homicide.

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercial airline pilots DO NOT have parachutes.

Re:Hillary!

[rtb61]

You have just mocked every solider in every war, that is bravery taking actions when you are afraid and can run away, well, to be shot any how at a latter date but you get the idea. Being a professional and doing your job when you have no other choice is not that brave, not really and if she failed, than those who trained her and those who selected her should be fired. Your typical fireman is more brave, your typical police officer is more brave, your typical teacher is more brave (well at least in primary school, kids, wow the stress of a class full, plus the legal ramifications;). The words a bit trollish seem to have completely bypassed your brain circuitry, I do find that interesting ;P.

Re:Hillary!

[rtb61]

See I don't get this whole vagina thing, really kind of stupid, you are aware the vagina is the one organ in a women's body specifically designed to sexually pleasure men, the womb et all, is the reproductive organ, the vagina is a penis massager in order to stimulate pleasure and ejaculation in men (really all kinds of stupid for feminists to talk about it, that would be feminist logic at work I guess).

Re:Hillary!

[Bartles]

I wish we could just say she was a good pilot who stayed calm and made the right decisions that saved the airplane and a bunch of lives. I don't really see what being a woman has to do with it. Yet you read every news article on this event, and without exception, the fact that she's a woman seems to be the most remarkable thing. As if she saved the airplane in spite of that fact. As if being a woman is a liability. So really, the vagina thing is a bit of social commentary and criticism.

Re: Hillary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they do, since 911 it became mandatory for airlines to install ejector seats for the crew.

Re:Hillary!

[DamnOregonian]

No.. No, I definitely have not. They are also brave. Lots of people are brave.

brave
adjective, braver, bravest.
1. possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance.
2. making a fine appearance.
3. Archaic. excellent; fine; admirable.

I fear I have fed a troll.

Re:Hillary!

[rtb61]

Actually the vagina thing is meant to be a joke. PS the reason of course feminist chose the vagina, the penis massager over the womb because of course if you don't have children as a woman, (womb man, so to fix words you should have 'pe'man or I prefer 'te'man, change a few words rather than change many), you would be a failure if your celebrated the womb, rather than the penis massager 'er' vagina (don't blame me for evolution).