Man Allegedly Throws Wheel Block Into Running Engine of Plane

AP / Fox News ^ | 1.3.03

[mhking]

DENVER

[Jorge]

No kidding, its incredible. I would have thought a giant shotgun blast of shrapnel would have shot out the other side. MINOR damage, wow!

Which brings up a good point. Damaged jet engines can and have blasted turbine blades etc. right through the passenger compartments of aircraft.
This kook could have ended up killing some of the very same people he claimed to want to protect.
Somebody with this sort of poor judgement doesn't need to be working on commercial aircraft.

[Swordmaker]

Vaguely recall a Jimmy Stewart movie where he bursts in to the cockpit and retracts the landing gear while the plane is still on the ground.

That was "No Highway in the Sky" in which Stewart plays an absent minded professor type (Mr. Bunney?) who is convinced a British designed airliner's tail will fall off due to matel fatigue after 1400 hours of flight time. He learns that the plane he is flying from England to Nova Scotia has over 1440 hours and makes a scene demanding an emergency landing. They land, inspect the plane, find no damage, order Steward removed from the plane and prepare to continue their trip. Stewart's character pulls the landing gear and bellies the plane on the runway to prevent it taking off. Meanwhile, a stress test on a vibrating tail section is proceding back in Jolly Old England...

[Swordmaker]

I applaud his motives... but "Wrong Way Corydon's" methods leave a lot of room for improvement...

[Bullish]

Heck, that's what I always do when I want to stop a plane.

[babygene]

Poohbah, are you on the wrong side again?

If your wife and kids had been on this plane, would you have still objected to this guy stoping the flight? IK don't think so...

[Happy2BMe]

" I will suggest withholding judgement for now."

I'm with you on this - wait and see, stranger things have happened.

Remember the Hawaiian Airline 737 that had the roof blow off because the rivet kit was not installed?

The error on the side of safety is not exaclty in the passenger's favor.

[second_half_recovery]

Because he'd be fired?

[Tennessee_Bob]

Nope - no hero there. If he was as committed to safety as some would make him out to be, then he wouldn't have let the aircraft start at all. Instead, he tosses a chock down the inlet fan of a airliner engine on an aircraft carrying how many people? Suppose the engine had shelled out while sitting there at the gate after pushback. Hot turbine fragments through the wing and surrounding fuel cells, possibly through the passenger cabin...yeah, he's a hero. There was a whole chain of command he could have pursued, but he didn't do it.

[Tennessee_Bob]

turbomachinery spinning and amazing speeds can just swallow crap like wheel blocks and geese and hardly get messed up

Depends on the engine, the RPM at the time of ingestion, and the pilot's actions after the ingestion. I've seen a quarter inch nut and bolt take down an F-16. I've also seen an F-16 come back after swallowing a five pound seagull and come home. It depends on the material that gets ingested as well.

[Tennessee_Bob]

And swallow people also

I'll have to say that I've never seen (or heard of) an individual get ingested by an engine and survive. I've witnessed a firefighter get pulled into the inlet on an F-16, and get hung up on the inlet strut just short of the fan - but he never touched the engine. You get pulled into the engine, and you're dead.

[RCW2001]

Excellent point...he had might better laid down in the path of the plane and created a scene, versus endangering others.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Damaged jet engines can and have blasted turbine blades etc

737 in Great Britain did that on take off.

[babygene]

"There was a whole chain of command he could have pursued, but he didn't do it."

I don't think the whole chain of command is there for the lowley mechanic...

Maybe he did what he had to do...

[Tennessee_Bob]

Better yet would to have been to pull the breakers from the cockpit, keeping them from doing anything with the aircraft.

No, wait - that would have been too easy.

[Tennessee_Bob]

See post 34.

[Joe Hadenuf]

This guy is nine cents short of a dime. Put him in a rubber room.

[Tennessee_Bob]

BTW, the mechanic isn't as lowly as you might think. As a jet engine mechanic, if I didn't want an aircraft to fly, it didn't fly. And I didn't put a lot of people - or any people, for that matter - in danger to do it.

[babygene]

Don't you tyhin he tried this first? Probablty didn't work...

[babygene]

Sorry, tyhin = think

[Tennessee_Bob]

No - I don't think he tried it. If he had, he would have walked off with the breakers in his pocket and the aircraft would have been dead. Instead, he throws a chock into a running engine. He's no hero, he's an idiot.