What nonsense
Your friend's brother must be a 'great' pilot...
Let me know his name, so I can be sure never to fly with him!


P.S Sorry for bringing up this old thread, only just found it, and read it all, very interesting

I'm not afraid of 2-engines planes, but you might want to consider British Midlands Flight 092: one engine failed, the pilots misdiagnosed the problem and shut down the good engine by mistake, leaving them with no engines. The crash killed 47. This kind of accident wouldn't happen with 4 engines.

Similar thing happened with the C5 crash at Dover AFB. Engine failure on #2. When pilot increased throttles on approach he increased throttles on 1, 2, and 4 while good engine #3 sat at idle. There's an eerie simulation video of it float around the net somewhere. Here it is: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/221930/c5_animated_crash/

*Shrugges shoulders* I get on the plane, I have a few drinks and a nice meal, I get off. Who cares how many engines? Just live your life.

Lots of things can go wrong with a plane. Not very often, but when we're talking about the very small incidence of bad things happening, a lot of the time, we're talking about things completely separate from engine failure.

Maintenance has a lot to do with many accidents, and I would think that flying a newer plane would minimize this concern to a certain extent, although that might be irrational thinking as well.

Regardless, I think when comparing the 777 and 747, generally 777s are just better planes; they may not look as grand, or even as safe, since when the paint jobs are equal, 4 engines certainly looks better than 2. But on the whole, flying a 777 means flying a newer better-built machine, and that certainly takes care of any preference I might have otherwise to having more engines.

As noted elsewhere in the thread, the 777 (knock on wood) has at this point never been involved in a fatal crash.

I saw that on Air Emergency on National Geo. Fascinating story-they main "failure" was that neither pilot had much experience in the new model of the plane and when they smelled smoke in the cockpit they shut down the wrong engine because in the old model that engine had been the sole source of AC. However, in the new model, both engines fed the AC.

I have to out myself as an aircraft-toucher. Started it once, retained the habit. But: I only do it now when I feel the "need". Not so on a 777. Not a rational thing anyway.

When I want to get rational, I only think about how many times the airline, the aircraft or any aircraft does the trip without anything happening, and the likelihood that something will happen exactly when I am there is soooo tiny, so nothing to worry about. Time Magazine recently had a very interesting cover story on risk, which should help you to understand what you really have to worry about. Fat, sugar, smoke, booze, etc...

The way I look at it is - four engines means four more things that can blow up!

There are more airports across the North Pacific than the North Atlantic.

SEA, YVR, JNU, ANC, ADQ, ADK, SYA, PKC, and KUH should all available in an emergency.

Compare this to the North Atlantic.

Unless you are on a fairly northerly routing (i.e.,U.S. to Helsinki or Oslo), Greenland is out, as the only reasonable divert location is Kangerlussuaq (the old Sondrestrom Air Base), which is pretty far north.

There was a 747 landing at NRT which shut down 3 engines many years ago. UA or NW?

Since you are so worried, how do short haul planes built by Boeing or Airbus make it across the oceans to server their domestic routes? Every route can have land within targetable range barring an extreme catastrophe.

I stopped in TPE once for an emergency refueling. No engines were out but the pilot wanted to cover his bases on the way to SIN.

On the other hand, it's a much greater distance. Gander-Shannon is 1722nm; Seattle-Kushiro is 3720nm.

As for delivery flights, they may require circuitous routes or extra fuel to stay within reach of a suitable airport. Hawaiian Air's 717 had extra tanks in the passenger cabin for their delivery.

Maybe they did at one time, but no more:

http://www.reuters.com/article/marke...0070831?rpc=44

Virgin Group boss Richard Branson said on Friday he would aim to avoid buying fuel-thirsty four-engined aeroplanes in future to curb fuel costs and the environmental impact of his fast-growing airlines.

Actually, would not Air Canada's service from YVR-HNL be longer

I would be surprised if ETOPS rules applied for delivery flights (or more broadly, flights where no passengers are on board). The extra tanks certainly aren't used to satisfy ETOPS rules - they are there to provide enough fuel to reach the destination.