United 777 suffers engine failure, scatters debris over Denver

[jb747]

Sadly we don't have much travel or aviation news these days....

And, for those who are nervous about flying anyway, here's some amazing video of a Delta 777 after an engine decided to have a holiday.

 

[Mattg]

Looks like it was United

United 777 suffers engine failure over Denver

A United Airlines Boeing 777-200 suffered an engine failure just minutes after taking off, strewing debris across a Denver neighbourhood.

www.flightglobal.com

A United Airlines Boeing 777-200 suffered an engine failure just minutes after taking off, strewing debris across a Denver neighbourhood.

The aircraft left Denver International airport as UA 328 at 13:04 local time on 20 February, destined for Honolulu with 241 people on board. Flight tracking website FlightAware shows that it returned to Denver and made an emergency landing about 25min later.

Witnesses on the ground report on social media that they heard a loud explosion around 13:09 local time, and saw smoke coming out of the right engine of the aircraft, which had climbed to about 13,500ft.

 

[Seat0B]

The ABC News is reporting a serious inflight incident on UA328 Saturday from Denver-Honolulu (B777) Has reports of an engine "blowing up" and photos of the engine on fire and debris on the ground. Luckily no one was injured.

Looks nasty.

 

[jb747]

I know it looks pretty bad, but I think this will prove to be a good example of containment. It's lost a couple of fan blades, which probably started the failure sequence. I expect that there are many compressor and turbine blades missing (probably all), but there is no evidence that I can see of any of this stuff cutting its way out of the side of the engine. We'll need to see images from other angles on the ground to be sure of that. The cowl structure is weak, and it would only take a little damage, plus some air loads, for that to be removed.

The fire is interesting, as I'm not really sure what could be burning. The things that can burn are removed when you pull the fire switch, though there will still be residual fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluid in the systems. The fire suppression system would be ineffective anyway, but it seems to be decreasing during the course of the video, and not spreading to the pylon.

 

[Quickstatus]

On the same day a B747-400 freighter operating MST-JFK as 6T5504 suffered a number 1 engine failure (also a PW4000 series engine) on takeoff.

?fan/compressor/turbine blades fell onto a town near the airport

@jb747 what is an uncontained engine failure. I don’t think bits of cowling falling off necessarily equal “uncontained”
QF32 and WN1380 would be uncontained - the engine was unable to prevent the escape of high energy projectiles. But what if the projectiles escape from the rear and not the side?

 

[BAM1748]

From the NTSB image collection.

https://flic.kr/p/2kE6YKH

https://flic.kr/p/2kE6VHF

https://flic.kr/p/2kEarhN

 

[jb747]

On the same day a B747-400 freighter operating MST-JFK as 6T5504 suffered a number 1 engine failure (also a PW4000 series engine) on takeoff.

?fan/compressor/turbine blades fell onto a town near the airport

@jb747 what is an uncontained engine failure. I don’t think bits of cowling falling off necessarily equal “uncontained”
QF32 and WN1380 would be uncontained - the engine was unable to prevent the escape of high energy projectiles. But what if the projectiles escape from the rear and not the side?

If an engine starts coming apart, it's almost guaranteed that some components are going to fall out the back. It's impossible to stop them, as, after all, that's what you want the air to be doing, so you can't block that flow route. Containment refers solely to the escape of components with very high rotational energy, out of the side of the engine. The engines will all stop blades from doing so, but nothing is capable of stopping a disc if it decides to leave.

QF32 was most definitely an uncontained failure. A disc came apart, and set off in three different directions. If one of these directions hits the aircraft, then it WILL go right through to the other side, pretty much as if it wasn't there. On the other hand WN1380 was not an uncontained failure. In that case the blades were stopped, but a combination of the damage to the cowling, airloads, and vibration caused it to shed the cowling, and it was the impact of part of the cowl on the side of the aircaft that caused the window to break, with the subsequent depressurisation and loss of a passenger. If it had not hit the window, it probably would not have done much more than dent the aircraft.

The image above, of the underside of the UA777 is almost certainly from cowl impact, and not from a containment failure. You can see the impact extending onto the wing, with a scrape/dent. It appears to have penetrated an aerodynamic cover, not the actual pressure hull.

This image shows the outcome of an uncontained failure that hit the leading edge of the port wing, and then chopped its way right through to exit on the other side. BTW, the crew did an outstanding job with this.




This is starboard engine of a 767 that had an uncontained failure whilst on the ground at LAX. It's particularly impressive, as the engine in the picture is not the engine that failed....that component had chopped its way out of the port engine, then gone through the fuselage, and ultimately hit the other engine.

 

[Quickstatus]

Thanks for the explanation!!
I wonder if sitting in a section of the fuselage abeam of the engines might not be the best idea though I suspect there may be no way to quantify each of the risks. If a hot disc goes through the central fuel tank it may not matter where anyone is sitting

I’ve never liked sitting next to a Saab340 propellor

 

[jb747]

I’ve never liked sitting next to a Saab340 propellor

People have been killed by wayward propellors....

In the 380 manuals, there was an area in which the internal oxygen system was plumbed in a way that had some extra redundancy. The area was described as the "turbine burst zone"....