I am trying to track a flight which left CGD sometime in '92 or '93, enroute for JFK. I think it was a 767 or possibly a 747. On take-off one of the engines caught fire and the plane dumped fuel, turned around and landed at CGD and the passengers were put up at a hotel and left the next day. I dont know the airline although I believe it was an American one. I know two different people who claim to have been on this flight but cannot remember details and no amount of internet searches seem to come up with anything. We are looking for details for a book. Anyone know anything? The engine properly and visibly caught fire so it must have been quite a deal at the time. As the two people are vague on details there is a possibility that the flight could have left from ORY and not CGD. Anyone?

COG31. Firstly, welcome to FlyerTalk

I am guessing this is describing Paris, although you don't say. The Paris airport you possibly refer to is Charles de Gaulle (hence its code CDG) rather than Changde, China, which is CGD.

It's unfortunate that despite the lurid details of an engine fire no one can actually remember even how many engines the aircraft had.

It sounds no big deal. Jet engines are full of flames inside, that's how they work. It's normally all hidden from view by the cowling but a whole range of events can cause the flames to be visible. For example if a bird goes through the engine it disrupts the flow of combustion and you can see considerable flames in the rear. It's only by appropriate design that the huge exhaust from a jet engine is not normally visible. But if you get this happen, shut down the fuel flow, discharge the CO2 extinguishers built into the engine (white smoke then visible - was there any ?) and just turn back home.

So an event that happens to airlines round the world and is standard practice for the crew to handle is really nothing to find lots of details on the web about. It sounds like the engine was shut down, and then you return to base because although it's quite safe to contine with an engine out (especially if it was a 747) the resulting inefficiencies may mean you don't have the range to continue to destination. And you come back to base because that's where your engineers are to check things out.

The hotel until next day is not normally because loads of engineers are working on it but because the crew will now be out of legal flying hours if they were to start again.

It happened to Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic on their very first aircraft when it was being checked out by the authorities prior to their inaugural flight. All the test engineers aboard were fascinated. You can read about it in Branson's autobiography.

Thankyou for that. Yes I am sorry, in my head I was writing CDG but my fingers evidently had their own idea.

Whe you say "it is no big deal", do you mean that it may not have even been newsworthy?

My friend seems to think there were only two engines, and that there was a lot of smoke. Could this be a sign of the times, i.e. these days even an aborted landing seems to get news coverage because people are more nervous..?

Also you say that if it were a 747 then losing an engine would not be a problem. So as long as the engine was not on fire, do you think a flight such as this one, bound for, say a 7 hour flight to JFK, would continue the flight despite losing an engine on take-off? Has this ever happened?

COG31:

Yes, an engine failure even at takeoff is no big deal and would not normally get into the press. I haven't got the figures to hand but any major airline will get about one per 100 aircraft in the fleet per year. Pilots train for it every 6 months when they go into the "simulator" for a "check", which is really just to give them continuing experience in all the issues that can happen. An engine failure/fire right at the decision point in take-off is normal on each check, and they will probably get thrown in a simultaneous hydraulic failure, maximum crosswind, and if they are lucky the instructor acting as co-pilot will feign a heart attack as well ! And they just follow the procedures to handle all this. In initial pilot training you all do it literally dozens of times.

Most cases of smoke and flames are not actual engine fires but just something going through, birds, sucked-in debris, etc. That's why they happen on takeoff, close to the ground.

A 747 is quite capable of continuing an ocean crossing after an engine failure. It all depends where it happens. The issue is that you can't normally maintain economical altitude or fuel consumption with an engine out, and although a 747 can fly for 16 hours, normally if you've just taken fuel for the trip plus the standard reserves you may not have sufficient fuel to get there with the correct reserves still remaining. But if it goes pop halfway across the ocean you can certainly continue OK. Most pilots (and airlines) would however normally turn back if it happens on takeoff. If nothing else the subsequent logistics are easier. You may have to wait a couple of hours to burn off the fuel to get down to landing weight. Airlines don't like dumping fuel unless absolutely necessary, if nothing else it's bad publicity and upsets the passengers who see it streaming out from the wingtip dump valves, better to burn it off through the engines as intended. You can always throttle the engines up and deploy the speedbrakes to burn it faster. There are different requirements for aircraft with only two engines and you would always land those as soon as you can, though there is still the burning off fuel issue.

Pilots normally despair of what they read in the press of aviation events anyway as it is so often a complete travesty of the truth.

Please don't think those of us who know a little bit about aviation are blase about it, because otherwise safety would not have been worked up to the wonderful levels experienced nowadays where you're probably more likely to be struck by lightning multiple times on the way to the airport than to come to grief in an accident. It is all achieved by sheer professionalism and concentrated effort by all involved.

Even a twin engined plane using an engine, is usually no problem. Boeing ran the 777-300ER for five and a half hours, trans-pacific as part of one of their tests for the new plane. A little more info here:
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...r_031015g.html