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Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

independent.co.uk

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Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#31

Post by davidw »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #22
iooi wrote: post #11

Who is responsible from a liability perspective: Boeing, Rolls Royce, or Norwegian?

I don't know if there are special rules for air traffic. But generally, the immediate operator (i. e. the airline in this case) would be responsible. If any of the manufacturers (or possibly a maintenance contractor) were to be responsible, the airline would simply be able to recover whatever damages they had to pay from them.

Being Rome and all... I could see a bunch of people with any sort of dings in their cars or windshield chips making claims in the near future :-)

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#32

Post by rimliu »

serf wrote: post #30
rjsw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm reminded of all the jokes Jeremy Clarkson makes at Rolls Royce's expense... Rolls-Royce Holdings only makes aero engines, the cars are made by BMW.

>the cars are made by BMW. as of 1998. Most of Clarksons' jokes are in reference to the 70s and 80s era of Rolls Royce -- which is known among auto enthusiasts as one of the least reliable group of cars to have ever existed.

"All the parts falling off this care are of the very finest British manufacturing".

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#33

Post by rimliu »

drdrey wrote: post #26
krona wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the aircraft itself seems otherwise undamaged, and people on the ground reported it 'rained' metal shards, I'd say these parts melted off the turbine and fell out. Significant but not catastrophic.

> significant but not catastrophic So... not great but not horrifying?

Not great, not terrible.

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#34

Post by droithomme »

krona wrote: post #14
t0mas88 wrote: post #3

Small shards (in great numbers) that according to a witness on the ground were burning or very hot sounds a lot like (pieces of) blades from the turbine or stator/guide vanes. In both cases it's a very significant engine failure.

Given that the aircraft itself seems otherwise undamaged, and people on the ground reported it 'rained' metal shards, I'd say these parts melted off the turbine and fell out. Significant but not catastrophic.

Insane comment!

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#35

Post by jacquesm »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #25
notahacker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbf the Trent 1000 is one of two engine options on the 787; more have GE engines fitted so on the balance of probability your aircraft has a completely different engine anyway. The ability to fly for extended distances on a single engine is something modern long haul aircraft are designed for and pilots trained for, and even if it's a RR-engined aircraft you're probably more likely to have engine issues with birdstri…

It's an El Al flight, and their entire fleet of 787-9s use RR Trent 1000 engines. I'm exaggerating a bit about my concern. I know the statistics on modern aviation safety, even with Boeing's, uh, recent track record on such things. Frankly, in the grand scheme of things, I'm more concerned about my safety driving in Tel Aviv than I am about my flight getting there ;)

It's not the per-passenger-mile safety that you should be concerned with (the ones that are usually trotted out), it is the per-flight safety that you should be concerned with.

That's about 15[1]/45000000 for 2018, not sure what the longer term trends are. So your chances of dying due to an airplane crash if the distribution is random is 1 in 3 million give or take. With 'bits falling out of the engine' the distribution is of course no longer random.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/02/health/plane-crash-deaths...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2018/12/28/air...

edit: found better figures.

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#36

Post by droithomme »

gota wrote: post #5
cmurf wrote: post #2

More info and photos. http://avherald.com/h?article=4cb6a09d&opt=0

Those metal bits look big enough to kill a person. I mean, anything havier than a marble falling from high enough will do a lot of damage, right?

It's a miracle only a handful of people were injured.

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#37

Post by jacquesm »

krona wrote: post #14
t0mas88 wrote: post #3

Small shards (in great numbers) that according to a witness on the ground were burning or very hot sounds a lot like (pieces of) blades from the turbine or stator/guide vanes. In both cases it's a very significant engine failure.

Given that the aircraft itself seems otherwise undamaged, and people on the ground reported it 'rained' metal shards, I'd say these parts melted off the turbine and fell out. Significant but not catastrophic.

This ended well, fortunately. But that must have been pretty scary.

A 787 that is out one engine will put extra load on the remaining engine, if that one has gone through a similar life as the one that just dropped bits all over the place I'd not wager on the remaining one being as safe as when it was last inspected. That's a lot of eggs in one basket.

And they don't glide particularly well either, though there are some interesting stories around passenger aircraft and glide landings:

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

But that one had a good 9000 meters more height to work with and it wasn't over densely populated area either.

Re: Metal shards from Boeing 787 taking off over Rome rain down on people below

#40

Post by SkyMarshal »

BillSaysThis wrote: post #24
jcampbell1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it has GEnx engines you have little to worry about. The easiest way to tell the difference is the GE has metal leading edges on the fan. The Trent fans are all cfrp.

Can you tell this when booking your tickets? It isn't a detail I've seen using most travel websites or even an airline's own app.

You probably can figure it out with some sleuthing. For one example, SeatGuru records every airline fleet's different plane types. Once you have airline + plane type for each of that airline's routes, I bet you can dig up the engine type from that info.
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