And the article
Is here.
Posted on 11/13/2001 5:57:06 AM PST by Axion
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:45:41 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Investigators examining one of the separated engines from American Airlines Flight 587 found foreign debris inside, indicating that the engine may have ingested a flock of birds and then caught on fire.
The engine burned internally, people close to the investigation said. But its parts appeared intact, except for the damage from what is known in aviation as ``foreign object debris,'' or ``FOD.'' That would suggest that the engine didn't suffer a catastrophic failure from some mechanical breakdown, but from sucking in birds, these people said.
(Excerpt) Read more at interactive3.wsj.com ...
The issue isn't whether or not an engine(s) would be damaged but that the damage would result in a loss of the airframe. And the leading edge of the tail looks pretty good, having avoided all that feathered fury.
There is a big difference between taking a bird(s) into the engine at 200-some-odd knots on takeoff and meeting your Thanksgiving dinner at 600 knots face-on.
The worst that you should reasonably expect is a hurried but orderly shutdown based on EVM and other readings. Even if both engines were hit, the crew should have had enough time to throttle back and declare an emergency.
The most likely mechanical explanation would seem to be a rotor burst which FODed the other engine and the wing structure. But I've got to see a lot more evidence. Even then, Lucy's got a lot of 'splaning to do as to why something that, by reg, is supposed to exceed 1x10e-9 happened within 30 days of 11 September.
The way things are running, as for that land, I'll give you $20 of Monopoly money for Park Place with all your hotels.
This is very true, especially if they are BIG birds, and this is the season for large size bird migrations. A few years ago a KC135 (also a large aircraft) in Alaska crashed on takeoff just for this reason killing all on board.
However, it may be an engine problem of another sort - a 'thrust reverser' on one engine which deployed inadvertently in flight. This would produce a huge and instantaneous application of torque sufficient to shear off the tail and engine(s). This event has also happened before - with the uncontrollable loss of the aircraft. However, this event would not explain any evidence of FOD - especially recognizeable bird FOD - in the engine(s), if indeed that is the case as the article implies. It is quite likely one would find some physical evidence of the birds or impact in the engine or on (unburned) parts on the airframe if it were a large bird or flock of birds that were struck.
Eggsackley! THAT is why we need to hear the cockpit tape.
IF it were a flock of birds, wouldn't the pilots notice that
and make mention of it BEFORE the engines fell off?
How am I doing? Do I have this down yet?
perfect. After all, PLANES DON'T CRASH INTO QUEENS!
(actual statement offered as evidence of terrorism by Freeper)
no, then the turbine blade are damaged enough to begin spinning out and slicing off pieces of the plane...like the stabilizer. Anyway, no one is a bigger conspiracy theorist than me, but I think this one smells like bird strike.
Good point. The recoreder would say something like #$^%$&, look at all the %$#@&**^%$$## birds!
What about the dumping fuel story? That failed too.
My husband said something similar to this. Actually, he also thinks it could be bird strike, but he said too that an engine could have been, well, he explained it to me as when the washing machine starts to get way out of line, with an unbalanced load of clothes. So I guess that's what you're saying too.
Um, the tail fell off FIRST.
I cannot explain or even verify that or much of anything else about this crash. Nor can anyone at this point. We hire aviation experts to investigate aircraft crashes, determine the causes and prescribe preventative measures. Why don't we let them earn their pay? Are we really capable of accurate second guessing only 24 hours after the crash?
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