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This happened to me about 15 years ago in Las Vegas. I was on a 727 leaving Vegas with a bunch of hung over gamblers. The plane got about half way down the runway when one of the engines made a loud pop sound. I saw a lot of people sober up quick, when we had to brake real quick.

Wow, that Vegas flight sounds scary. I got a funny mental picture though of all the drunks with their faces mashed into the setback in front of them.

Hey what's going mummmmpf, mummmmpf, what da, mummmmpf....

Glad you got through it ok!

We were a little further along when our plane had trouble.

We had just gotten into the air on a United flight from Houston to San Francisco and were still over the runway, I think, when there was a large bang and the plane shuddered. People on the left side reported a large flash in the left engine at the time of the bang.

The pilot then gunned the other engine, and the flight continued on at fairly low elevation for a few minutes. Nothing was said over the intercom, but the right side engine stayed revved up. All the passengers were looking at each other.

The pilots gradually turned back to the airport. The intercom finally came on, and the pilot asked us to put our head between our knees as we were going in for a landing. Still no word about exactly what had gone wrong. Obvious, I guess. We were to follow the instructions of the stewardesses and jump out of the plane onto the inflatable slides once it landed.

Fortunately, the plane landed without a hitch, and we didn't have to evacuate on the slides.