Passenger jet lost parts landing at KDEN?

Cap'n Jack

Cap'n Jack

Final Approach
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Cap'n Jack
I wonder what happened- plane landed safely, but appears to have dropped engine nacelle parts on the way to KDEN.
 
Engine failure on departure. Sounds like the engine's nacelle departed which could indicate an uncontained engine failure.

Passengers swapped to another airplane and back on their way to Hawaii.
 
That makes sense. One part I saw looked like something went through it, but I'm far from having any expertise about that.

What airline? I'm surprised they had another plane ready to go so quickly, probably with the same seating arrangement since they could board so quickly.
 
So often we hear about a light plane going down in a residential neighborhood. It's happened near where I live.

But instead of that, it's gotta be a surprise to find this in your front yard:

_117102614_29b7fccb-442f-44a3-b35b-6f12508cf332.jpg
 

edit: yeah, I just noticed the video in a link in an earlier post.
 
PaulS said:
Maybe, but that fire coming out of the combustion area might be still producing some thrust, albeit not much.
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Could be, I would just be very surprised if the fuel supply wasn’t cut off in short order.
 
Exciting day in the B-777 community, one of the best airliners ever designed. Maybe THE best one!
 
I am wondering if it is the oil system pouring out and burning? Only thing that would still provide fuel, assuming the shut offs worked on fuel/hydraulics.
 
My son has been flying alot lately and a few months ago (actually it as 12/24) he was flying from Thief River Falls, MN to Pittsburgh. Originally his flight was to depart Bismarck then to Minneapolis then on to Pittsburgh. On his way to Bismarck from Thief River Falls (2 hours west) he got an alert that all flights out of Bismarck were cancelled due to weather so he turned around and started heading to Minneapolis (5 hours east). His wife booked him another flight out of Minneapolis. On the way there that flight was cancelled. She then booked him a flight for early the next morning. He stays at a hotel and leaves early the next morning for Minneapolis. He gets there and his flight comes in and lands. Then they announce the flight is cancelled due to mechanical issues with the plane. After a short wait they announced they found another plane but had to clean it first. They then board the plane and their luggage is sitting out beside the plane in the baggage carts. They announced there were no workers available to load the luggage...lol. After about another 45 minutes sitting in the plane a crew showed up to get the luggage loaded. This flight was going to Cleveland so me and his wife drove there to pick him up. Apparently because of COVID and it being X-Mas eve day they were short staffed so that was why they had to wait for a baggage crew.

Point of this was about them having another plane there ready to go but had to tell the whole story as messed up as it was...lol
 
skyking3286 said:
CNN is funny at this point.... they are playing the mayday call and the announcer thinks that "United 328 heavy engine failure" is "heavy engine failure" rather than "United 328 heavy, engine failure." Understandable, but someone needs to mention in the earpiece the correct info.
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That’s heavy, man.
 
Love the "heavy engine failure" lol.

Nacelles are optional. Bonus points if they don't fall on people. Haha.

Elsewhere I joked, shhhh don't tell them that engines are always on fire. Hehehehe.
 
skyking3286 said:
On another board with a ATC person, it turns out that the 757 isn't a "heavy". . . the history of that call sign with the 757 is a study in the FAA trying to find away to confuse things. It was a heavy in 2009 until it wasn't. Wake turbulence is strong with it, they had various models that were over the weight limit and others that weren't. So the FAA punted and just called them "large" and raised the weight limit above the 757 range! And then they increased the wake separation, until that got confusing so they dropped that too. So the pilot could be saying heavy engine failure or there is a possible factor of his being heavy to land, since the plane was barely out of Denver, bound for Hawaii (needless to say, glad that didn't happen two hours later. . . ). Or simply reverted back to being a 747 captain. . . I will grant him more than enough grace to say anything he wants at that point in the emergency!
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This was a 777, not a 757.
 
skyking3286 said:
On another board with a ATC person, it turns out that the 757 isn't a "heavy". . . the history of that call sign with the 757 is a study in the FAA trying to find away to confuse things. It was a heavy in 2009 until it wasn't. Wake turbulence is strong with it, they had various models that were over the weight limit and others that weren't. So the FAA punted and just called them "large" and raised the weight limit above the 757 range! And then they increased the wake separation, until that got confusing so they dropped that too. So the pilot could be saying heavy engine failure or there is a possible factor of his being heavy to land, since the plane was barely out of Denver, bound for Hawaii (needless to say, glad that didn't happen two hours later. . . ). Or simply reverted back to being a 747 captain. . . I will grant him more than enough grace to say anything he wants at that point in the emergency!
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Knowledge of the subject matter at hand is helpful to conduct a conversation on said subject.

Just saying.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Knowledge of the subject matter at hand is helpful to conduct a conversation on said subject.

Just saying.
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When has that ever stopped anyone on POA or the internet in general? The amount of armchair aerospace engineers after any incident, especially one as dramatic as this one, is always astonishing.
 
Sorry, my peers. We were going down a rabbit hole that started with someone else's comment on another board who made that mistake. I just thought it was interesting that
the 757 had a fairly checkered past in what to call it!
 
PaulS said:
Maybe, but that fire coming out of the combustion area might be still producing some thrust, albeit not much.
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My guess is that fire is the result of metal on metal friction. The combustion area on the engine is further aft. Those are the TR cascades holding the fire.
 
Busflyer said:
Well that’ll do it.View attachment 94196
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A fan blade out event shouldn't result in the shedding of the entire cowling. It seems from available photos that the fan casing wasn't penetrated, so it appears it is still a "contained" failure from the perspective of rotating machinery not penetrating its respective casings, but obviously a catastrophic failure from the perspective of safety implications for both the aircraft and people on the ground. Will be a very interesting NTSB report to read once they get into the guts of everything.
 
AKiss20 said:
A fan blade out event shouldn't result in the shedding of the entire cowling. It seems from available photos that the fan casing wasn't penetrated, so it appears it is still a "contained" failure from the perspective of rotating machinery not penetrating its respective casings, but obviously a catastrophic failure from the perspective of safety implications for both the aircraft and people on the ground. Will be a very interesting NTSB report to read once they get into the guts of everything.
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I wonder if the broken blade was "captured" by other blades and rotated long enough to slice open (off?) the front of the engine cowl?
 
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AKiss20 said:
A fan blade out event shouldn't result in the shedding of the entire cowling. It seems from available photos that the fan casing wasn't penetrated, so it appears it is still a "contained" failure from the perspective of rotating machinery not penetrating its respective casings, but obviously a catastrophic failure from the perspective of safety implications for both the aircraft and people on the ground. Will be a very interesting NTSB report to read once they get into the guts of everything.
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I was actually referring as to why they had an engine failure. I agree with your statement.
 
kyleb said:
I wonder if the broken blade was "captured" by other blades and rotated long enough to slice open (off?) the front of the engine cowl?
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The fan casing extends some ways upstream of the fan face before you get to the non-structural acoustic liner and cowling. I’d be pretty surprised if the broken blade shrapnel would work it’s way that far forward, And typically in blade off events the blade fragments either get caught in the fan exit guide vanes or exit out the back through the bypass nozzle, but it is possible I suppose (particularly if it was caught in the surge event that inevitably followed the blade our event). My guess is that the strong imbalance probably ended up shaking the cowling attachments to the point of failure but that’s just pure speculation. That shouldn’t happen but if the engine was left at high power with a heavy imbalance it might be possible. Again just speculation as a fun thought exercise.
 
nrpetersen said:
Think of the ETOPS consequences at United:(
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Wouldn't jump the gun just yet. First need to find out what failed and why. And as designed, the airplane kept flying and safely returned to the airport.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Wouldn't jump the gun just yet. First need to find out what failed and why. And as designed, the airplane kept flying and safely returned to the airport.
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Fortunately, they won't have to go deep sea diving to recover the FDR and CVR.
 
Wingsofglass said:
Anybody know what the salvage laws are for airplane parts that fall on your property?
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Should be under "freshwater" salvage laws, which mean that the property belongs to the original owner. We had to cite this when we had a marina, and someone "found" an outboard motor under water.
 
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