A flight from Paris to Los Angeles on Air France Flight 66 was forced to make an emergency landing at Goose Bay Airport on the eastern tip of Canada. While crossing the Atlantic ocean near Greenland, one of airplane's 4 engines suffered a small explosion. Passengers on the flight said that they heard a couple loud pops and the plane started to vibrate and descend for a few minutes. About 15 minutes after this stopped, the pilot announced that there was a small engine explosion, but the passengers weren't told much more information. According to one of the passengers, Nathan Goldberg, "People on the plane stayed calm for the most part, but were disappointed in lack of communication from the airline." The entire front part of the engine, including to fan, were gone, and the right side of jet had a brown substance streaked along the side. No one was injured or killed during this incident, and the 497 passengers are now flying from Goose Bay Airport to Los Angeles to reach their destination.
Questions:
1.) What would your first reaction be when you heard the loud popping noise and felt the vibrations from the plane?
2.) What do you think could have caused the engine to explode and leave the brown streak down the side of the plane?
3.) Why do you think that the Airplane crew didn't tell the people on the plane a lot of information about the incident?
Answers:
1.) I would be kind of confused and probably be freaking out if I heard the popping noise and the vibrations, but if it felt like turbulence it might just feel normal. Turbulence can still be scary though so I still would be nervous.
2.) I think that maybe there could have been a part in the engine that got stuck or stopped working, causing the rest of the engine to overheat and explode. As for the brown streak on the plane, I think maybe when the parts of the engine fell off, they could have scraped against the side of the plane leaving a streak.
3.) I think that the crew didn't give the passengers a lot of information because they didn't want to freak them out or scare them about the engine explosion.
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Replies
Excellent job Abby!
I would start freaking out because I am not a calm person and I don't like flying. The engine could've had some failure or blockage that made it explode and the brow streak could've been from oil or pieces of the engine. I think they didn't want to tell the passengers because they wanted everyone to remain calm and they might not of known what was going on.
I would be scared and think that we were going to crash. I have felt turbulence before and I'm sure that what they felt when this happened was a lot worse them turbulence. Anything could have happened, sometimes stuff stops working and there is 1,000 ways it could have stopped. Probably because they did not want to scare the passengers and have every one nervous and not calm.
Turbulence on airplanes can be very scary and what the people on this plane felt was probably much more intense than turbulence would normally be. If I felt this, I would have known that there was something wrong.
If I heard the loud popping noise and felt the vibration form the plane, I would freak out a little bit because that's usually not normal. But the best think to do in any situation like this, is to stay calm. I think the engine failure could've been due to an overuse of the engines on the long flights. Also maybe if the engines have been used for a long time and weren't maintained correctly. They possibly didn't tell the people on the plane what was happening, so they didn't freak out and overreact.
Yes, if the crew and airline workers didn't maintain and take care of the engine correctly and check it thoroughly, the engine might have had a flaw.
The fuel from the engine could have possibly been what the brown mark was on the side of the plane if it leaked out during engine failure.
I'm already freaking out when there is a little bit of turbulence when I'm on a plane, so if I would hear a loud popping sound I would probably have an anxiety attack and be freaking out. I think that the engine probably overheated and then exploded. The brown streak was probably caused by the engine being so hot that it turned it brown. I don't think it would have been in the crews best interest to give the passengers all of the information because it would freak them out.
I agree, the engine could have overheated so much that it turned part of the plane brown when it fell out.
I don't think I would freak out much, I would trust the airline and pilot that everything was okay. I don't really know much about airplanes, but the engine might have just been old or overworked. The crew probably didn't tell anyone about the plane because they didn't want the passengers to get frantic. They wanted to instill calm.
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