findark

They just had a frame in from XMN by happenstance, so I think that will pick up the slack in the fleet.

EWR764

Hawaii flights are operated under 180-min ETOPS rules... West coast to Hawaii is entirely over open water and needs almost every minute of those three hours!

UA has a sizable HNL TechOps presence which performs line maintenance on 777s and PW4000 engines. If they don't have a spare engine there (possible but not likely) one will need to be brought in.

^. The fact that the NTSB is involved makes this much more than a non-event. I think it's a testament to the resilience of the airframe and soundness of design, as well as the crew's response to the failure, that made it turn out like a non-event for all on board.

Fraser

Or worse...killed by your namesake

Mrotenfan

Many people without aviation knowledge suddenly become expert and making smart comments here on ABC site

RatherBeOnATrain

That article used photos that Erik Haddard posted to twitter, but they didn't use the best one, which Mr. Haddad titled "I don't see anything about this in the manual":




Link to original twitter post:

mr8

What's with all the mechanical issues on the HNL flights? I was on HNL-DEN last month, and the plane had to fuel dump and return to HNL because of some water and air issue, and then do a crew swap in SFO before continuing on.

24left

Mods - I did not see these photos posted in this thread. Feel free to move/merge or delete.

Source: https://twitter.com/TomPodolec


The photos were taken by others and posted on their Instagram pages and linked on this Twitter page

drowelf

Yes it is tested. I remember a special on the building of the A380 where they performed such a test. The built one of the fan blades with a small explosive charge in it. Ran the engine up to full speed and blew the charge. It was quite interesting to watch. One of the lead engineers stated that he got a perverse pleasure from actually planning to and executing the destruction of a multi-million $$ engine.

Reminds of my days in back doing DOD Submarine Sonar Software work. They had these things called ASPs which were the digital signal processors. There were water cooled processor cabinets about 2x2x4 feet. Normally they have all kinds of safeties that cause them to shutdown if the electricity goes wonky or they get too hot. That is until you pressed a switch under a guard toggle, that was labeled 'Battleshort'. Push that button and it won't stop running until it suffers a catastrophic failure, generally when the circuit boards started melting. Every so many they would test one to destruction, then tear it apart to see what failed and rework the engineering on that part to make it last longer.

riphamilton

about 20(?) years ago, when a UA 772 flying AKL-LAX had to run on an ETOPS-record single engine for 192 minutes (and diverted to KOA), UA had to fly in a spare PW4090 from SFO. it was actually flown to HNL, and then barged to the big island.

i agree that it's unlikely there's a spare in HNL. i believe that because of their large dimensions, 777 engines have to be flown aboard a 747 (or antonov, i suppose).

PaulInTheSky

AndyPatterson

The Washington Post had a story with some interesting quotes, but the aviation/tech details were all scrambled up! Obviously the reporter knew little about aviation or technology.

Someone else -- probably a FT commenter (!) -- had this to say:

EWR764

Worth noting that there was no decompression, but the airframe vibration caused a few panels to come loose, hence the 'party masks' visible in some of the cabin photos.

raehl311

The odds of an engine failure are minuscule. The odds of a 2nd engine failing after the first one are equally minuscule.

In fact, pilots and aviation experts would absolutely guarantee the other engine would remain functional, because that's how the airplane is designed - it is designed so that the odds of an engine failure are so remote that if one fails, you can certainly still land with the other one.

That's why back in the day, when engines were less reliable, long-haul planes had 3 or 4 of them. Fortunately, due to modern engineering, an engine failure is a non-event.

chermorg

ETOPS is literally designed for the unexpected. Nobody expects an engine to fail. However, ETOPS says just that - in the extremely unlikely event of even one engine failure, how long can the other engine be guaranteed to fly on under extreme conditions. ETOPS literally is for the unexpected - not the expected.

prestonh

When I flew LAX-AKL back in the day it pushed the ETOPS routes to the max. Pretty sure the new IAH-SYD also is more isolated than the HI flights (180 min etops shown, but I think the UA 787 is certified to a longer standard so the no-go area is smaller).