Commercial jets ever engine out off field?

I think that engine failures on commercial jets are very uncommon and a single engine on most modern airliners can do the trick. This is how many airlines can certify their jets for ETOPS.

Wiki entry: "ETOPS is an acronym for Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards, an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rule permitting twin-engined commercial air transports to fly routes that, at some points, are farther than a distance of 60 minutes' flying time from an emergency or diversion airport with one engine inoperative.

This rule allows twin-engined airliners—such as the Airbus A300, A310, A320, A330 and A350 families, and the Boeing 737, 757, 767, 777 and 787 and Tupolev Tu-204 —to fly long-distance routes that were previously off-limits to twin-engined aircraft. ETOPS operation has no direct correlation to water nor distance over water. It refers to single-engine flight times between diversion airfields—regardless as to whether such fields are separated by water or land.

ETOPS may be replaced by a newer system, referred to as LROPS, an acronym for Long Range Operational Performance Standards, which will affect all civil airliners, not just those with a twin-engine configuration. Government-owned aircraft (including military) do not have to adhere to ETOPS. Until the mid-1980s, the term EROPS (extended range operations) was used before being superseded by ETOPS usage."

 

I know of commercial turbo props having brief engine outs due to ice ingestion but they have always auto-restarted (while I've been on board ).

I also know of one incident - a Cessna Citation II - that had both engines cut out (due to lack of fuel - pilot error) and then glide to a landing. The aircraft came out of cloud at 1000' close to a recently bulldozed firebreak and was able to belly land safely. No injuries sustained! This was in the early '80s and a good friend was one of the passengers.

 

A 767 of Air Canada ran out of fuel and dead sticked on an abandoned runway that was being used as a drag race strip . The crew calculated the fuel load in liters instead of gallons and took off with short fuel for the trip. Lucky that the pilot was a glider pilot and knew about silent flight.

 

There is the famous story of the "Gimley Glider". The Air Canada 767 that ran out of fuel due to a miscalculation and made a dead stick landing at an abandoned military base. There was also a trans-Atlantic flight (Airbus?) that developed a major fuel leak. The flight crew didn't realize the severity of the problem until it was almost too late. They diverted to the Azores and were able to land virtually on fumes.

Cheers,
Kurt O.

 

An Airbus also ran out of fuel and deadsticked in to the Azores in the North Atlantic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

I know of a Learjet which ran out of fuel and had to glide in to Hawaii.

Generally, though, multi-engine turbine aircraft of any size are very reliable. It's highly unusual to lose one engine, and if that happens it's largely a non-event. Loss of both engines is typically due to running out of fuel.

Heck, a British Airways 747 had an engine fail on takeoff from LAX a few months ago, and they continued all the way to the UK on 3 engines!

 

This crew put down a 737 when it lost both engines.. They were IFR in a rain storm and had the engines at flight idle as they were decending to New Orleans. The rain was so severe that it put the fire out in both engines. As I recall they broke out of the clouds and the pilot was lining up to ditch the airplane in a lake, as they went around a bend there was a strip of grass along a levee so he dropped the gear and put it down safely. The only problem was that the airplane sunk to the axles in the grass... I remember seeing a picture of the airplane in av week, sitting along the levee with the slides deployed... That has to have been the luckiest pilot ever, most other off airport landings for big commercial aircraft don't end nearly as well....

Here is the accident description...

Just nine months later in May 1988, a more serious incident occurred as TACA Flight 110 from Belize to New Orleans, Louisiana, was descending to land. This 737 was passing through a series of thunderstorms when it suffered a double flameout. The engines had been throttled back for landing so the internal heat was minimal. The storm was strong enough that the engines ingested heavy rain and hail that simply put out the flame heat source. The crewmembers managed to briefly restart the engines but were forced to shut them down again because of overheating. The pilot managed to pull off an amazing emergency landing as he glided the plane to touch down on a strip of grass next to a levee embankment along a lake. The passengers and crew evacuated using escape chutes with no injuries. The 737 was recovered and is still flying today for Southwest Airlines.

I wonder if there is a published "soft field" landing procedure for the 737....

 

2 years ago had an engine out from ICT to LAS (supposed to be direct flight) on an Allegiant flight (believe it was an MD 80) We stopped in Colo Spgs. Pilots didn't tell us why until we landed, was slightly concerned when looking to the east, all the aircraft were military then I remembered it's a shared strip...got my attention anyway. It was a non event other than waiting 6 hours for the next aircraft and since we were only going out for the night (no hotel room) it ate into our vegas time...other than that, glad we had 2 engines, 4 sounded good at the time. Never made the news or anything.

BJ

 

They do happen, Rob....

I recall a flight from Grand Cayman in an A320. It was an evening flight and as we neared Cuba the pilot came over the intercom to announce the loss of oil pressure and having to shut down an engine. We were not cleared to land in Cuba and the pilot made the decision to fly back to Grand Cayman. It was a very quiet cabin until wheels down. I recall it was over an hour in the air before starting our decent so it can clearly fly on one engine.

 

To loose both engines is quite unlikely, however every multi engine plane is required to be able to fly with atleast 1/2 of the engines working. Back when the 747-300 came out they had a few problems where at altitude all of a sudden for no aparent reason all 4 engine would just spool down. My uncle happened to be one of the pilots who this happened to (it happened about a dozen times). I asked him what he did and his only response was "you ever see 2 pairs of hands look like 8?" I couldnt help but laugh. All times that this happened once the 747 descended about 10-15 thousand feet the engines would restart, Boeing never really figured out what was causing it as they could never get it to replicate it and the planes that it happened to were literally stripped down to individual bolts and checked and everything was ok. As was said earlier ETOPS is a modern way of certifying and aricraft to fly for an extended time as a twin engine, Many planes now are at ETOPS 180 or the ability to fly or 180 minutes with and engine falure adn not have an alternate IE never be more than 180 minutes from a point to land. ALso there is a story of a Pilot who shortly after take off out of some where in japan or china enroute to London and decided to continue to London, perfectly legal however he didnt have the necessary fuel and ended up landing in germany. Also we are trained to react to an engine failure at any point so its really not as bad as many think.

Also a good freind of mine who flies the University of North Dakota Weather mod citation was testing out a new icing set up on the plane in alaska about 2 years ago and when he activiated the engine De ice it did more than it should have and as a result both engines ingested ice and flamed out he ended up putting the plane down in a freshly clear cut area of forest the wheels sunk in and the wings clipped a few stumps and broke the spars the plane was a complete hull loss. No one was hurt, We now call him super pilot as this was not the only miraculous landing he has done (he also landed a Bellanca SuperDecathalon with a aileron hanging off and flapping in the wind)

 

Nice posts all. We shouldn't forget about the 'other' meaning of ETOPS

Engines Turn or Passengers Swim.

 

Years ago when I was an engineer at Cessna, one of our test pilots had to land the CitationJet prototype aircraft on highway K-96 north of Wichita due to fuel starvation. Apparently, the fuel level indicators were not working correctly. The pilot landed the plane safely with only minor damage to the leading edge of one winge where it hit a road sign on the roll-out. Fuel truck from the Mid-Continent airport came out and fueled the plane and they flew it back off the highway and over to Cessna's facility.

 

When was that? I don't remember ever hearing about that one. Been in ICT for 30 years and don't recall that. What part of 96?

 

That wouldn't be the first test pilot to run out of gas.

 

I love doing tha stuff, its fun to fly with out using the yoke isnt it! Last week i did a 300 mile trip where the Only time I touched the yoke was on take off, Flare and to avoid a flock of birds.

 

There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked." Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "The dreaded seven-engine approach."

 

Back in July '98. They landed on K-96 just northwest of Maize.

 

interesting...never did remember that in 98...hopefully it was put down in the correct lane of traffic. I do have to say that is a great thing about Kansas, many a road could be a runway, no curves here...

 

As I recall, they did land going with the flow of traffic, but had to veer off the road to avoid overtaking a car that they landed behind. I think this was how they dinged the wing.

Many Citations used (and may still use) a capacitive fuel probe to measure the mass of fuel in the tank. I don't recall the exact nature of the failure, but it apparently caused the cockpit tape indicators to show more fuel in teh tanks than was actually there.

 

I seem to remember a 747 (British Airways?) that had all its engines shut down because of ingestion of volcanic ash. There was also an Eastern L-1011 that had all its engines shut down because of a maintenance screw-up of some sort.

I recall that the 747 managed to restart all its engines, while the L-1011 started one engine and made an emergency landing, I believe in Fort Lauderdale.

Anyone who can fill in the missing info with these stories is welcome to.

One thing is certain: if you look through the book "Airline Crashes" by Terry Denham, it is amazing how many accidents before 1960 were caused by engine or propeller failure, and how such engine-related incidents dropped to nearly zero in the jet age!

 

That is this one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 - amazing story! The pilot announcement to the passengers (who were clearly aware of the problem!) is priceless:

 

Here is a link to the Eastern incident that I alluded to:

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1984/AAR8404.htm

Apparently the same mechanic made the same error on all three engines. I've been told that on aircraft certified for ETOPS operation, different mechanics are required to work on each engine, just to keep something like that from happening.