This is believed to be the moment when the engine exploded https://t.co/LfHFXywuNu
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) February 20, 2021
I was offline until Adam texted me that plane parts were falling in CO. Serves me right for unplugging for the day.
This is about 3-4 miles and on the flight path of my old neighborhood. I actually texted friends to see if any parts showed up at their house.
So I’m morbidly fascinated by it all. And since (so far) no injuries have been reported, and the plane landed safely, we can all stop and gawk at the spectacle.
MORE: Aerial footage from AirTracker7 shows a hole in the roof of a home in the area of the debris field. The home is located in the 13000 block of Sheridan Blvd in Broomfield https://t.co/aQCMovUVlX pic.twitter.com/FOtyZ8vVYP
— Denver7 News (@DenverChannel) February 20, 2021
I got this first photo from the man who lives in this home where the engine intake fell. There is damage to his home’s gutter and to his truck. The intake then rolled onto his front lawn. #Broomfield pic.twitter.com/fyZSDLwNwr
— James Dougherty (@DoughertyKMGH) February 20, 2021
Just to the north of this house is a huge neighborhood park, soccer fields, dog park, walking paths, where a lot of debris fell. It was about 50 degrees when this happened, so a lot of people were out and about.
A passenger on United 328 took this video of flames shooting out from the engine. Some people told me they said prayers and held their loved ones' hands as they looked out the window. Flight was on its way to Hawaii from Denver. Glad everyone onboard is safe #9News pic.twitter.com/c8TNYlugU2
— Marc Sallinger (@MarcSallinger) February 20, 2021
@broomfieldnews @BroomfieldPD @9NEWS we were at the dog park when we heard the loud boom from the airplane and pieces of the plane started falling pic.twitter.com/9nRg3UgUmV
— Claire Armstrong (@BAREESTHETICSCO) February 20, 2021
I think those are the highlights…I’m sure there will some fun interviews on the news tonight.
And I’m sure you’re thinking what I’m thinking…what were 231 folks doing flying to Honolulu during a pandemic?? Or maybe that’s just me.
Consider this an open thread
Achrachno
I wish I could be flying to Honolulu.
Glad everyone is OK.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Well, that’s scary.
Skepticat
Hoooleeeee crap. Thank goodness it wasn’t any worse.
Jerzy Russian
I recall several years ago a 747 either leaving or approaching Hawaii developed a large hole in its side. Apparently those planes can “safely” fly with such damage, although I would not like to test that.
TaMara (HFG)
The last fatality in the US was a similar situation, but the engine debris broke the window and a woman was killed when the plane depressurized.
Benw
Like I said below, real life Donnie Darko!
RaflW
The guy who got the front cowl (huge aluminum ring at the intake) in his yard, just feet from his door and roof. Wow.
And while an uncontained engine failure is less likely at cruise, lucky this didn’t happen halfway thru the overwater 5 hours – though of course 777s are designed to fly many hours on one engine, it woulda been much more stressful for all aboard. And it may be a while before we know if any shrapnel caused damage to the wing, systems, etc.
Congrats to the pilots for doing their jobs well! Some career paths tolerate incompetence less than, say, politics.
Yutsano
Good news: planes can fly on one engine without too much trouble.
The bad news: the pilots were smart enough to cut the engine but as you can see from the tweet with the engine blown apart there’s still a HUGE amount of heat in that engine. Any stray fuel gets in there and that plane could turn into a fireball.
CaseyL
@Jerzy Russian: There are a lot of redundancies built into jets – but you’ve got to maintain them properly. A lot of airlines economize by cutting down on maintenance. Plus, smaller airlines often build their fleet by buying older jets from larger airlines – and are even less likely to spend the money to maintain them properly.
So I guess we should consider ourselves lucky this doesn’t happen more often.
Can’t imagine how I’d feel if I looked out the window and saw the engine on fire.
randy khan
Hawaii is one of the best states in the country for COVID-19, with just 42 deaths, and very low infection levels, and does require pre-arrival testing or post-arrival quarantine for anyone coming from out of state. It may be the safest state in the country, actually. So if you were picking a state to go to during the pandemic, Hawaii would be pretty high on it. Also, you know, it’s Hawaii.
BruceFromOhio
That engine video is pretty scary. Glad the plane landed safely.
Evil_Paul
@Benw: Check for local artists making demonic rabbit masks. That’ll be a sign.
mrmoshpotato
@randy khan:
Fixed.
TaMara (HFG)
OMG, some family were in their kitchen when plane parts crashed through – most stayed stuck in the ceiling!
NotMax
@randy khan
You’re off by a factor of ten. 427 deaths statewide so far.
TaMara (HFG)
@Yutsano: The FAA just said the fire extinguisher equipment failed.
Shana
We have friends whose family has had timeshares for ages and take some time in February every other year to go watch whales, among other things, in Hawaii. We were supposed to join them this year but backed out. You need a negative covid test within 72 hours of landing in HI or quarantine on arrival for 10 days. They’re currently there, spending a whole month since he just retired at the end of 2020.
Punchy
As I was Beoing to say, it takes some engine-uity to figure out those were plainly engine parts raining down.
TaMara (HFG)
@Punchy: I guess the explosion was pretty loud – and lots looked up to see the plane smoke and debris falling.
Ruckus
That pickemuptruck is looking a bit worse for wear.
Looks like new truck time to me. Also looks like it might be a work truck.
RaflW
@CaseyL: It’s a fine line. Skimp on maintenance, and a machine with a $24,000,000 list price blows up and has to be replaced. Or maybe you loose an entire aircraft.
Maintenance nowadays is also much more sophisticated, with computer monitoring that is often live data-linked back to airline maintenance shops.
From Forbes:
ColoradoGuy
About 10 miles away from where I am now. Wow. The suburbs north of Denver are in the flight paths of the big birds that we see all the time, both approaching and departing DIA and the transcontinental flights high overhead.
Amir Khalid
Friends of NotMax?
WaterGirl
So, if you were on that plane, would you get back on another plane to Hawaii or would you decide maybe you didn’t want to go to Hawaii after all?
RaflW
@TaMara (HFG): The fire bottles may literally have been blown off the outer structure of the engine (my armchair speculation, admittedly).
NotMax
Pull the wings, slap on a couple of stabilizers and putt-putts and you’ve got … a mufffin.
;)
Baud
It’s raining plane! Hallelujah!
It’s raining plane! Amen!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
What are the chances of it happening twice?
RaflW
@Baud: Boeing found out with the 737 MAX.
Immanentize
Put it in a bucket!!!! A big bucket
Argiope
@WaterGirl: it would depend on my xanax and extra underwear inventory at the time. Rationality can only take me so far.
Immanentize
This has probably been put up a dozen times here. But I love it so.
The Marsh Family — Get The New Jab.
Baud
Gotta blame it on something (gotta blame it on something)
Gotta blame it on something
that was fallin’ fallin’
(Blame it on the stars) that did shine at night
Whatever you do don’t put the blame on you
Blame it on the plane (yeah yeah)
You can blame it on the plane.
jeffreyw
@Baud:
Yo, Garp! Long time, bro.
J R in WV
Many years ago we were flying a charter flight back to WV after WVU played in the SuperDome in NOLA (They lost, so sad, but after the game we were in New Orleans on New Years Eve!!).
Anyway, not long after taking off from Louis Armstrong Airport, the jumbo jet went THUMP really loudly, and followed that up with a major shimmy you could feel as your seat was moving back and forth.
Charter pilots put us down at the nearest airport in the flight path, which was a USAF base in central Louisiana. They found that a small access hatch had not been properly secured, it had popped open which was the thump, and the open hatch door caused the shimmy by hanging out into the slipstream. So they shut that puppy harder, and we flew on back to WV. No one but perhaps Crew even got off the plane…
Was years ago now. We still fly. Shit happens, even on airplanes, and you’re more likely to die in a traffic accident than on an aircraft. Glad this incident worked out well for everyone involved, even the folks making sandwiches in the kitchen when aircraft debris came through the roof!
Wag
Friend’s daughter was playing soccer in the park when the debris began to fall. Scary afternoon. Glad everyone is ok.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Before jet travel was common I traveled on a least three commercial prop airliners which had an engine go up in flames while aloft. IIRC each time we turned around and the pilot dumped fuel, leaving enough (with an extra margin) to make it.
Another Scott
@TaMara (HFG): I remember. :-(
ABQ Journal:
The story has a couple of pictures of the damage to the engine. It’s superficially (to these untrained eyes) similar to that event.
InFlightNews:
It’s still too early to be speculating, but I’m sure the investigators will be looking to see what’s similar and what’s different compared to those earlier failures.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Wag:
Making this my next short story opening sentence.
RaflW
@RaflW: A little looking around, the halon fire suppression bottles are inside the aircraft, but the plumbing runs down inside the engine mount so who knows what happens when the entire cover and a bunch of guts blow off?
Geoduck
@Jerzy Russian: “Safely” in the sense that particular plane made it back to the ground intact, but a stewardess was sucked out of the hole; her body was never found.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: I pick number B.
Wag
@Immanentize: I look forward to reading it!
A Ghost to Most
Denver is seldom boring. Sometimes terrifying shit falls from the skies, but usually it’s hail.
TaMara (HFG)
@Wag: Really, truly, it could have been so much worse.
Baud
@TaMara (HFG):
Glad it wasn’t so we can have fun with it.
TaMara (HFG)
@A Ghost to Most: Or the neighbors’ trampoline during a microburst. (true story)
Sloane Petersons knee therapist
Ted Cruz is understandably relieved that it wasn’t his plane returning from Cancun that fell apart.
HinTN
@Immanentize: I don’t think any of my friends need persuading, and we sure don’t, but that is wonderful.
NotMax
Happened to be on the road and not far from the airport when the plane on which part of the roof peeled back landed on Maui.
Drove around the back way to the ass end of the airport, where it either taxied or was towed to, to gape at it where it sat, maybe 50 yards away from the fence. Airport didn’t have any fancy-schmancy jetways back then*, everyone exited down staircases onto the tarmac, so that same spot might have been where the passengers left it too.
*Terminal was a funky single story building, with a large banyan tree growing up through a hole cut in the roof. Luggage claim was a series of wooden racks outside the building, albeit partially under an overhang.
Baud
I hate when WaPo tries to emulate the NYT. Didn’t click.
HinTN
@NotMax: You have lived there a right long time.
Baud
Clown show next weekend.
rikyrah
Bravo Doctors????
NotMax
@Baud
“Low-key approach.” As in not loudly bleating about how great he is and how it’s the bestest emergency response in the history of the universe?
TaMara (HFG)
Photos of the roof, ceiling and kitchen of the folks who were making sandwiches when the debris hit their kitchen.
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/debris-from-commercial-aircraft-falls-on-broomfield-neighborhood-plane-lands-safely-at-dia
Baud
Class act.
SiubhanDuinne
Plane parts keep falling on my hood,
And I shouldn’t hang around, I ought to leave, I should.
I can’t look away,
Those plane parts are falling on my hood, they keep falling.
They fell right through someone’s kitchen, and a truck,
Fell in a city park. I heard a guy yell “DUCK!
Here they come for you!!”
Those plane parts are falling on my hood, they keep falling.
But there’s one thing I know,
The FAA won’t settle
‘Til the metal is analysed —
Inspection dudes are in fine fettle.
Plane parts are falling on my hood,
And that’s not a thing you want to hear, it can’t be good,
Flying’s not for me
‘Cause I’m never gonna stop the plane by complaining
I’m safe and sound. Here at home on the ground.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sure. Go ahead and make me look bad.
JMG
@Baud: Dole and Biden served together for a quarter century in the Senate. I have no idea how they really felt about each other, but that’s a true bond.
Ken
@Immanentize: Short story, or slow ballad?
Brachiator
@Baud:
Biden keeps doing what he’s doing and Republicans and pundits keep looking like small-minded dopes.
trollhattan
Wow, the 777 has [checks notes] two engines, total. That’s a [spins up calculator] 50% loss of engines. Can’t wait to get inside scoop from our pilot friend who’s flown 777s for United. Loves the plane, BTW, now flies 787s.
A Ghost to Most
@TaMara (HFG): Or tumbleweeds engulfing towns out in the flats. I shouldn’t laugh, but it looks like something out of “Blazing Saddles.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
Yeah, but they’re really big engines.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Unpossible.
CaseyL
@TaMara (HFG): He’s gonna have fun filing that homeowner’s insurance claim, and the insurance company is gonna have less fun going after the airline for subrogation.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Have only been to the New Modern Improved 21st Century Maui airportlet but it’s still pretty charming. Better is the rental car shed, featuring hosts from the Maui Chicken Brigade. :-)
I remember the 737 that had its skin peel away. Too many take-off/land cycles or somesuch. Kind of expected with island-hops.
JustRuss
@CaseyL:
Just curious, does Texas have their own version of the FAA?
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
“These go to 11.”
Amir Khalid
An intriguing question is answered.
rikyrah
How many other planes can continue to fly after losing one engine?
zhena gogolia
I really like the epithet The Former Guy. I’m adopting that.
trollhattan
@JustRuss:
They were going to call it the TAA but settled on the T&A. Moar Texas that way.
Mike J
Now you have airlines flying to Paraguay or some such to do all their maintenance because they don’t like the idea of paying a professional union mechanic.
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
I would assume that, at the very least, God was suggesting I review my travel plans.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
What, no G&S?
I’m a pilot without peer,
Scoff at giving in to fear,
When strikes emergency;
I am never known to quail
At the shudder of a tail,
And I never, never drop debris!
.
What, never?
‘
No, never!
.
What, never?
.
Hardly ever!
.
Mike J
There was an A-330 (also 2 engines) that lost both 100 miles short of the Azores and glided in.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
That’s wild. Glad nobody so far has been hurt
trollhattan
@Mike J:
? Yikes. You get ONE shot.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
???
LongHairedWeirdo
@JMG:
I think Dole may have been he last decent Republican who ran for President. I could be wrong… but when I remember hearing of him, it was only rarely in defense of the indefensible. Of course, I didn’t *care* about him, so I could have missed a lot.
I was actually somewhat let down when I heard him speaking in defense of the Florida “let’s just say our guy won, and not worry about who voted for who” BS. I felt like he chose to side with the obvious bad guys (in any election, anyone who doesn’t want everyone, who is eligible, to vote, and doesn’t want every vote counted, is one of the obvious bad guys), just because of the R after their name.
But the fact of the matter is, it’s entirely possible he just shined with decency and humility next to the newt&co, which, I mean, talk about your low bars to clear. They were worse than Limbaugh, because they took an entertainment schtick and used it to try to govern. At least Limbaugh only tried to line his pockets “honestly” (in the sense of, he spread hateful lies in ways that brought in advertiser dollars).
dmsilev
@rikyrah: It’s a standard requirement. Planes are supposed to be able to fly with one engine out and make it to the nearest airport, even if the failure happens over the middle of the ocean. The current regulation goes by the catchy name ETOPS 180, which basically means you have to be able to fly for 180 minutes with an engine out, and routes have to be planned so that there’s always an emergency landing option within the distance.
LongHairedWeirdo
@trollhattan: Yeah, but if the odds of an engine failure on a flight is 1 per thousand, the odds of both engines failing is now literally once in a million chances. (And I assume that the odds of a minimally maintained engine failing is probably far less than one in a thousand, based on the assumptions of flight frequency, versus engine failure.)
I grant you, I’ve often wondered what it’s like flying a plane with an engine on just one wing, but I’ve also heard it repeated so often that they can handle the loss of an engine that I guess it must be no worse than “kinda weird”.
@CaseyL: Yeah, but not as much fun as the guy making a claim over having his car destroyed by a chunk of exploded whale.
(To be honest, that might have been far less fun than one might imagine, but with the distance of time, I think we can at least laugh hypothetically about it.)
Baud
No name
@NotMax: OT but may I ask about the yellow cake with raisins you and Watergirl were discussing in the previous post? Link to recipe would be appreciated.
RaflW
@rikyrah: How many other planes can continue to fly after losing one engine?
Any passenger plane certified to fly in the US, EU, Canada, etc.
And pilots practice engine-out takeoffs, landings, in-flight shutdowns, etc on full motion, very realistic simulators.
Millard Filmore
@Geoduck: That plane lost a good length of the roof and cabin, from the cockpit back.
search youtube for “Why Planes Crash: Jet Loses Part of Roof”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NWW77HnGTc
TaMara (HFG)
I think I’ll drag out the Sully DVD and watch tonight.
Baud
JanieM
@WaterGirl:
@Amir Khalid:
I was supposed to fly from Boston to London one night in 1997, and though nothing like a disabled plane got in my way, there was a pilot’s strike, and an adventure with my luggage being taken without me, and a sleazebag desk agent surreptitiously erasing a reservation (this was pre-internet, long story), and a bunch of other unpleasant things. Eventually I was offered a flight a day late, to a different airport from where my luggage had been taken, and I kept going back and forth between “The universe is giving me a sign that I’m not supposed to go” vs “The universe is testing my determination to push through obstacles.
This is to say nothing of the IRA bomb threats that met my plane when it landed.
I really did end up having a nice trip, though.
RaflW
@dmsilev: These days, it’s ETOPs 330. Yes 330 minutes endurance on one engine, overwater.
I hope to go to New Zealand some day. The flight gives me slight heebe jeebes.
Baud
@RaflW:
I’ve done it. It’s loooong.
SteverinoCT
@A Ghost to Most:
Airplane toilet holding tanks will sometimes leak, forming a substance called “blue ice” on the fuselage formed of water, waste, and the blue disinfectant. Large chunks of this can break off and fall. As Spider Robinson pointed out, this means you don’t have to live near a strategic military target to be hit by an Icy B.M.
Mike J
@RaflW: The 777 is certified to fly anywhere they’re within 330 minutes (5.5 hours) of an airport. Earlier planes had to fly within 120 minutes of an airport, then it was extended to 180, then 240. Now done on a plane by plane basis.
ETA: or what you said at 92
Mike in NC
There’s an old saying in the Navy that a helicopter consists of “18 thousand parts flying in close formation”.
Baud
@Mike in NC:
Helicopters shouldn’t work.
Gravenstone
@Baud: Well, there are two engines. Double your chances…
James E Powell
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Nah, the last decent Republican was Bill Clinton [ducks] – kidding kidding! It was common joke in the 90s.
TBH Dole was always an asshole with the standard corrupt ways. Google Bob Dole & Gallo wines. I think the last decent Republican nominee was probably William Howard Taft.
Stuart Frasier
@LongHairedWeirdo: With an engine out, the plane will have asymmetrical thrust. The pilot has to apply rudder to counteract yaw and aileron to counteract roll. All commercial pilots are trained to deal with the situation, but it’s a common cause of accidents on twin-engine general aviation craft.
Poe Larity
Delta uses GE and Rolls Royce engines. The RRs have had some failures, not sure about the GE 90.
Booger
@LongHairedWeirdo: You should check out Admiral Cloudberg over on Reddit if you haven’t. There’s all kinds of ways for planes to fail and it doesn’t always work out that two one-in-a-thousand events only happen once in a million.
NotMax
@No name
Bread machine recipe found online.
As stated previously, added in raisins this time and much prefer that change (did reduce the sugar by maybe a half spoonful as the raisins add their own sweetness). Wouldn’t recommend it for sandwiches but as snackage or with a spread or jam works out nicely as a change of pace.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: Pretty much all multi-engine aircraft are designed to remain air worthy with a 50% engine loss.
debbie
@Baud:
“When Specialist Mike Grimes and Det. Detherage arrived, they didn’t hear ticking they heard purring!” ?
NotMax
@NotMax
1-1/3 Cups, not -1-1/3 Cups, obviously.
(glares sternly at fingers)
Bobby Thomson
@Benw: Yep
debbie
@rikyrah:
The one I was on in Florida back in the 1970s. It was shortly after take-off, so the terror was somewhat brief.
Wag
@TaMara (HFG): There was a tornado in Lowry several years ago, and a friend’s trampoline ended up on a roof, as well.
No name
@NotMax: Thank you! I love raisins so this caught my attention. And don’t you hate when your fingers just wont behave ?
Wag
@James E Powell: If disagree. Ford was a good man
edit Other than the whole pardon thing
Ken
More dangerous in their own way than a bomb.
Ken
Shhh! They don’t know that.
debbie
Kemp’s a dick.
Ken
You remind me of “Subtraction Stew” from The Phantom Tollbooth. The more you eat, the hungrier you get.
James E Powell
@Wag:
No doubt you are a better person than I am.
Uncle Cosmo
Herbert Gold’s 1961 short story “The Day They Got Boston” begins**:
And it gets worse from there.
** Paraphrased from memory. Can’t find a fair copy on the Net, & while I actually have an old Dell paperback copy here somewhere of the 1963 SF short story anthology 17 x Infinity (Groff Conklin, ed.) wherein this little bit of thermonuclear-apocalyptic slapstick was reprinted, goddamn if I can find it, but take it from me, this is damn close.
persistentillusion
@TaMara (HFG):
Say what you will about COS (most of it deserved), but mostly it’s ash fall down here, not plane parts.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Loved that story.
46 was preparing for the worst, while projecting the positive best publicly.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Booger: You don’t have to tell me, friend; I was just trying to show how redundancy is far better than one might expect.
The odds of the engine “just failing”, where we won’t know cause until the engineers figure it out, is probably close to independent; and there, 2×1-per-thousand does become one in a million. But the odds of each engine failing isn’t always independent. Obvious example: if the same maintenance crew works on both engines, if they make a mistake, the odds they made the same mistake on both engines means we can’t assume independence of failures.
But I was responding to someone who called out what sounded to me like “only two engines” – and there’s a reason redundancy provides a surprising amount of protection.
@Stuart Frasier: That’s more or less what I figured, though I had no idea of *what* controls would be used, nor what those controls do. (I could have guessed “rudder” but never would have gotten aileron – I’m a ground-lubber, or whatever flyers use that’s akin to landlubber and sailors. )
@Ken: And here I thought it was clever to have two large rutabagas in my chili making workstation. “What on earth are those for?”
“Improving the chili.”
“HOW???!!!”
“By leaving them out.”
Starboard Tack
@Ken:
Not one of Chuck Jones’ best works, but he was constrained by the book.
Kirk Spencer
@Baud:
Oh, I disagree. They work. They just don’t fly.
They beat the air into submission. They work very well at doing that. Usually.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Close call. They can explode you know!
Yutsano
@LongHairedWeirdo:
You could also lose all four engines because of the rank incompetence of your flight crew. This was a terrible situation in many regards, especially the aftermath.
Yutsano
@Baud:
Neither should bumblebees. Yet here we are….
Side note: the ability to start in visual is maddeningly random.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
13 hrs from LA to Aukland. 2 meals, plenty of sleep. And it’s a different day when you arrive.
It was fun, I recommend NZ whole heartedly. Amazing place.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: I did LAX-MEL one time. 15.5 hours. You just have to relax and go with the flow.
But, yeah, NZ is lovely. I’d go back in a minute, if they’d let me.
L85NJGT
This happened with much more frequency in the reciprocal (piston) era. Internal combustion is more mechanically complex and less reliable than turbines. So they needed four props and a flight engineer. There were Coast Guard weather ships on station over ocean routes for weather, communications, and to fish passengers out of the drink.
Redundancy is the point of multi engine planes, some have caveats under certain conditions, but the idea is to climb out and land on one if there is a failure on takeoff.
danielx
There were lots of documented case of B17s landing with two engines out during WWII.
Three? start looking for someplace to set it down immediately.
Jeffro
Meanwhile, how many folks died in auto accidents this week?
(yawn) – American public
RaflW
Before the pandemic, we were looking at various options. I haven’t been to Australia either, but my partner has. He also has less free time.
So I was considering doing both, and maybe meeting up in Auckland? Now seems like it’s a couple years off in the future at least.
I still don’t even know when I’ll take my first domestic flight. Surely after my second shot(with know known time for even the first). I consider myself lucky to be able to do road trips this year!
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
This is like when Skylab fell out of orbit and wiped out most of Australia (link)
TS (the original)
@CaseyL:
Happened to me once – in the 1990s. We were c. 20 minutes out of Sydney (Australia) on a flight north. I just went dumb & tapped the arm of the passenger next to me.
Shortly thereafter the engine was shut down & the pilot announced we were returning to Sydney – would land in precisely 19 minutes and please do up your seat belts.
First and only time I ever flew directly into Sydney airport without any type of hold up – first and only time I was in a plane surrounded by fire engines on landing & first and only time I was on a plane that flew with total passenger silence then screaming, laughing and clapping when it landed.
We were plied with drinks at the airport lounge – I think to get us all brave enough to get back onto another plane!
TS (the original)
@Baud:
Haberman going to keep the ex president in the news for as long as she possibly can.
Suzanne
Arm is still sore and I have been tired and draggy all day. Ordered some new underwear on Amazon. Livin’ large.
Joey Maloney
@Jerzy Russian: I believe you’re thinking of this incident: Aloha Airlines Flight 243. It was a 737 interisland flight.
There’s a memorial garden in the Honolulu airport for C.B. Lansing, the flight attendant who was sucked out of the plane. It’s a very peaceful place.
Chris T.
You can sleep in those seats?!
(I did get an upgrade once. That was lovely.)
James E Powell
@TS (the original):
When you’ve only got one thing, I guess you have to keep going with it.
Yutsano
@TS (the original): Grifters always gotta be griftin’.
Uncle Cosmo
Depends on how packed the plane is & how indulgent the cabin crew. A friend whose peripatetic fambly ended up back here in Bawlmer spent nearly 3 decades university teaching in Japan & 2-3x yearly flew Air Nippon HND-IAD-HND, 14 hrs direct each way. The flight was usually empty enough that she could find 3 coach seats in a row to flip up the armrests & stretch out for some shuteye.
I started looking for similar opportunities on my yearly Yerpeen hauls & in the Good Old Pre-Pandemic Transatlanic Flying Era & often found them. It helped some. Dog only nose we’ll probably be flying Air Sardine once the vaccination chime chimes & we’re once again free** to move around the planet.
** Not free – not nearly free – but relatively speaking a frackin’ bargain. My most recent trips across the Pwnd cost about half in constant $$$ what my first did in 1980.
O/t: Twice in a row I got a working Visual window! Ooo-rah! Now all I need is a date for my Fauci Grauci & I’ll be in Paradiso dei Porci!