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Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

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Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#341

Post by esemor »

alexbanks wrote: post #307
esemor wrote: post #189

I think the auto shutdown of engines in flight, in case it senses reverse thrust, is a great design. The 787 is a replacement for my 767 (currently a pilot on the aircraft) and in 1991 a Lauda Air 767 suffered a failure in one of its thrust reverser and it became activated during cruise. The aircraft was destroyed in flight. The thrust reversers should not activate during flight (a air/ground sensors prevents that) b…

I am very scared of flying (although I still do it, although it's not fun). Any advice/rationalism you can convey? I am a person that became sweaty and anxious reading your post.

It is perfectly rational to be scared of flying. Hell, you're sitting in a pressurized cylinder at 30'000 ft flying at 700 mph. But you have to realize that the crew would not do this job if they weren't sure to come home to their families and dogs every night. Most pilots I know aren't thrill seekers but their love of flying are more a drive due to interest in travel and technology.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#342

Post by cm2187 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #293
cm2187 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By self destruct, I meant switching off the engines in flight seems to me to be a terribly dangerous behavior.

You would be surprised at just how safe and 'normal' shutting off the engines on a plane is. Related, British Airways Flight 268, a B-747, when taking off from LAX had a problem with one of it's engines so they shut it off, and continued flying all the way to London, albeit to Manchester instead of Heathrow, with one less engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_268

Shutting down one engine is one thing. Shutting down all engines is what surprised me.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#343

Post by paufernandez »

alexbanks wrote: post #307
esemor wrote: post #189

I think the auto shutdown of engines in flight, in case it senses reverse thrust, is a great design. The 787 is a replacement for my 767 (currently a pilot on the aircraft) and in 1991 a Lauda Air 767 suffered a failure in one of its thrust reverser and it became activated during cruise. The aircraft was destroyed in flight. The thrust reversers should not activate during flight (a air/ground sensors prevents that) b…

I am very scared of flying (although I still do it, although it's not fun). Any advice/rationalism you can convey? I am a person that became sweaty and anxious reading your post.

I have been there. If you think this anxiety has been on the rise (think carefully about if some time ago you had such strong emotions reading about accidents, etc), consider going to a doctor and treat your anxiety. Medication solves it, I can assure you. Rationalizing does not go very far.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#344

Post by metalliqaz »

cm2187 wrote: post #342
madeofpalk wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised at just how safe and 'normal' shutting off the engines on a plane is. Related, British Airways Flight 268, a B-747, when taking off from LAX had a problem with one of it's engines so they shut it off, and continued flying all the way to London, albeit to Manchester instead of Heathrow, with one less engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_268

Shutting down one engine is one thing. Shutting down all engines is what surprised me.

that's why this is news. it's very rare.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#345

Post by goodcanadian »

stephenr wrote: post #245
goodcanadian wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. It's not an emergency response. They probably did not request it right away as they expected to restart the engines. Once it was requested, they had to find someone available to operate it who had to go get it, perhaps check the fuel and fluids, et cetera, et cetera. Depending on the details, 40 minutes could actually be considered quite quick.

The article indicates it took 40 minutes from after they'd tried to re-start the engines, etc.

To my reading, it is a bit ambiguous when that 40 minutes starts, but so what? I am still not surprised even if it took 40 minutes from the time it was requested for the reasons I already stated.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#346

Post by [deleted] »

tjohns wrote: post #309
alexbanks wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very scared of flying (although I still do it, although it's not fun). Any advice/rationalism you can convey? I am a person that became sweaty and anxious reading your post.

My advice is to look at the statistics. Commercial flying is much, much safer than any other mode of transport. Do you get scared when you drive to work? Or take a train? Both are more risky. (Driving significantly so.) More specifically... The pilots have extensive training, modern airliners have fail safes everywhere, and the amount of research and engineering spent on aviation safety is mind boggling. See: http://…

[deleted]

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#347

Post by flyinglizard »

alexbanks wrote: post #307
esemor wrote: post #189

I think the auto shutdown of engines in flight, in case it senses reverse thrust, is a great design. The 787 is a replacement for my 767 (currently a pilot on the aircraft) and in 1991 a Lauda Air 767 suffered a failure in one of its thrust reverser and it became activated during cruise. The aircraft was destroyed in flight. The thrust reversers should not activate during flight (a air/ground sensors prevents that) b…

I am very scared of flying (although I still do it, although it's not fun). Any advice/rationalism you can convey? I am a person that became sweaty and anxious reading your post.

I advise you to forget statistics. They are very hard to relate to (we're not good visualizing large numbers anyway). Instead, think of the pilots who know these things inside and out and still choose to happily board each and every day. They raise families and eventually retire uneventfully. If they know the risks and still choose to go to work, surely you can board a flight.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#348

Post by marvin »

soheil wrote: post #328
tjohns wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advice is to look at the statistics. Commercial flying is much, much safer than any other mode of transport. Do you get scared when you drive to work? Or take a train? Both are more risky. (Driving significantly so.) More specifically... The pilots have extensive training, modern airliners have fail safes everywhere, and the amount of research and engineering spent on aviation safety is mind boggling. See: http://…

An accident during flight is pretty much a binary event when it comes down to whether you live or not, but with cars there is a whole slew of different types of accidents and vast majority of them don't cause instant death preceded by 45 seconds of absolute terror. Before you downvote what I said in no way discounts the statistics. It is much safer to fly of course than to drive, but when we think of accidents which…

Aircraft accidents aren't binary at all. Many crashes have few or some casualties, e.g. landing gear failure, running off the runway or hitting another aircraft on the ground. Ditto with in-flight failures that don't impact the flight (there's only one major thing that fails, picked up by the redundancies), engine failures that lead to emergency landings, extreme unexpected turbulence or ditchings etc. that might cause injuries and in some cases deaths. It's only the worst crashes (termed "air disasters" or similar) that lead to everybody on board dying. Of course, these get the most attention. I blame the news.

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#349

Post by aembleton »

jzwinck wrote: post #296
cbhl wrote: post #139

The Boeing 787 is now about nine years old. I wonder how much of this is operator proficiency triggering latent bugs (aka, "pilots got too good at pushing buttons quickly"). The bugs in the Therac 25 were only discovered after the machine had been in production for a while (you had to be typing "too quickly" in order to get the software to trigger the bug with the safety interlock).

The Ryanair booking website has several bugs exactly like what you describe. If you use it too quickly it won't sell you plane tickets. If you use it more slowly it works fine.

Probably to try and prevent bots

Re: Boeing 787 Suffers Rare Dual Engine Failure on Landing

#350

Post by l33tman »

WalterBright wrote: post #305
bunderbunder wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting power to all engines in response to an event that is most likely to happen while the aircraft is operating close to, but not actually on, the ground is not failing safe.

If the thrust reversers are deployed in flight, you're going to crash, even if near the ground. The airplane would be uncontrollable. If the engines quit, you still have control.

Interestingly, some airplane types allow the use of thrust-reversal in flight, notably some fighter jets. It's apparently used when you do need to sink quickly..
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