United B777-200 uncontained engine failure? over Denver

[Gabriel]

Ah, thanks J - hadn't read that. So this was indeed a contained failure.

I do wonder however if there are instances of a piece of cowling hitting at just the right angle or fast enough to cause material damage to a wing (?)

I don't remember such an occurrence, but we had the Southwest case where a piece of cowling hit a window (or nearby) causing such window to depart the plane causing a sudden decompression that partially sucked out a passenger that sustained fatal injuries.

[Gabriel]

My understanding is the damaged piece in the photograph is a fiberglass fairing and that it exhibits smears that are the same color as the inside of the engine narcelle. Supposedly the underlying wing root had a mark on it but was not damaged.

Exactly. Here is a better picture. There are several reasons why this doesn't look at all like an high energy shrapnel impact (from a blade being shot out) but rather a blunt-force impact (from a piece of cowling flying).

United 777.JPG (180.48 KiB) Viewed 3473 times

[3WE]

So, Evanie has proclaimed that we have again not learned our lesson and repeated an easily-preventable near total air disaster!!!!!

Another failure in regulation, training and oversight, that calls for firings and public physical punishment.

What do we (and we) think?

Ass-hat, outsider, 3BS parlour talk: Indeed this has happened twice, and I would ask if these huge ass turbines aren’t over-stressing themselves more than the little turbines of the 1960s?

[Gabriel]

Ass-hat, outsider, 3BS parlour talk: Indeed this has happened twice, and I would ask if these huge ass turbines aren’t over-stressing themselves more than the little turbines of the 1960s?

I don't think that it is a problem of "these huge ass turbines" compared with the "little turbines of the 60's"
In fact, I don't have the statistics but I am sure that today's turbofans are much more reliable than the early turbojets.

These seem to be rather a problem with this particular model of big-ass turbine. It had 3 failures of fan blades combined with cowling flown away in the last 2 years on a fleet of a little over 100 airplanes. That records seems totally unmatched by other big-ass turbines.

[Not_Karl]

The cowling is actually considered part of the airplane (not part of the engine)(...)

I look forward to watching Verbie's and PPie's public punishments on TV.

[elaw]

Ass-hat, outsider, 3BS parlour talk: Indeed this has happened twice, and I would ask if these huge ass turbines aren’t over-stressing themselves more than the little turbines of the 1960s?

I don't think that it is a problem of "these huge ass turbines" compared with the "little turbines of the 60's"
In fact, I don't have the statistics but I am sure that today's turbofans are much more reliable than the early turbojets.

These seem to be rather a problem with this particular model of big-ass turbine. It had 3 failures of fan blades combined with cowling flown away in the last 2 years on a fleet of a little over 100 airplanes. That records seems totally unmatched by other big-ass turbines.

Yeah... back in the day, you could get on an airplane with JT8Ds and be almost guaranteed that some part of an engine at some point would decide to head toward a destination roughly perpendicular to the plane's flight path. Nowadays, not so much.

[Verbal]

I look forward to watching Verbie's and PPie's public punishments on TV.

No.

[J]

United Airlines Sends Engine Failure 777 To The Mojave Desert
Excerpt with photos of N772UA

Until yesterday, the aircraft had been stored in Colorado since the incident, which caused engine parts to rain down on the local suburbs. However, it has now taken to the skies once again, flying to Victorville in California’s Mojave Desert. It appears that this could be the end of the line for the plane.

According to RadarBox.com, N772UA lifted off from Denver for the first time since the incident at 08:39 local time yesterday. After five months of waiting, it was able to briefly stretch its legs once again on a flight to California that lasted an hour and 40 minutes.

However, this was not a passenger-carrying flight to Los Angeles or San Francisco. Indeed, the 100-minute trip, which touched down at 09:19 local time, saw the plane fly to Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, widely known as an aircraft graveyard.

This suggests that, given N772UA’s age, this could be the end of the line. Simple Flying has reached out to United for further information regarding the plane’s fate.

N772UA’s potentially expedited retirement has not been the only consequence of its spectacular engine failure in Denver five months ago. Indeed, the incident impacted 777 usage worldwide, with engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney recommending that examples with its PW4000 engines, which N772UA had when the failure occurred, were grounded.

As it happens, N772UA is a particularly historic example of Boeing’s famous ‘triple-seven’ family, having been just the fifth example ever built. United is known for having some of the world’s oldest remaining 777s in its fleet, and it actually has another three that are older than N772UA. However, ch-aviation’s data suggests that these aircraft are all in storage.

As for N772UA itself, this aging aircraft has spent its entire operational career with United, since joining the carrier in September 1995. As of December 2020, it had amassed 96,751 flight hours across 17,222 cycles, averaging around five-and-a-half hours per sector. On an annual basis, this works out at 3,702 hours (just over 10 a day) across 678 cycles a year.

https://simpleflying.com/united-boeing- ... e-storage/

[3WE]

Moderate ironing that you have to install an Uber expensive engine and do some pricy body work and pay pilots and burn a shit pot of jet fuel to
FLY an aeroplanie to a junk yard.