Originally Posted by
PHLGovFlyer
Actually every twin engine commercial airliner built today can keep flying with one engine failed during pretty much every phase of flight.
It's actually worse from a yaw control standpoint to simply have one engine shut off during takoeff (rather than actually fall of the aircraft) because the drag that the failed engine creates adds to the yawing moment that the functioning engine on the other side creates. That yaw has to be overcome by the rudder and tail to keep the aircraft flying. If the engine simply fell off that drag goes away. All of this assumes that there isn't some larger structural problem with the wing of course.
The previous poster assumed the engine would fall off. If that happened during take-off, I'm not sure the outcome would be nearly as clean as your scenario assumes.
I know this was a long time ago, but let's not forget the one time an engine actually fell off was the horrific accident of AA 191.
As others have written, the problem wasn't so much the lack of power or balance, but that the engine that fell sliced through much of the hydraulics making the a/c impossible to control:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...nes_Flight_191