What Would Happen If One Jet Engine Failed

It would be controllable and likely feel like turbulence to the unknowing passenger.(in theory at least)

The vertical stabilizer/rudder/trim would react to compensate.

Passengers might feel a "hitch" while this took place, depending on the severity of the engine failure.

Would there still be enough thrust/lift at 35000 ft to maintaintain that altitude?

I was on a flight yesterday, there was a burning smell followd by a bang of some sort. On passenger said that the engine had stopped because he could see the vanes in the engine stopped. Are there fixed position vanes in a jet engine? Also I'm pretty sure we wouls have landed asap, which we did not.

Yeah - "depending on the severity of the engine failure" - passengers might just say "that's not a SEVERE engine failure" or they might bemoan that "THIS engine failure really sucks."

Only the aircraft designers can truly answer this question, but all should know that what goes up ALWAYS comes down; sometimes not quite in the way those onboard anticipated.

Pilots will tell you that engine failure is NEVER a ho-hum event, whether or not the passengers even note it. If the latter are alive to grab a cab to the house after it's all over, then all's well. If the engines sucked 20-pound butterballs and they get their lives summarized on the evening news, then who (else) cares?

It's restart potential that matters, re: LANDING, not what happens in-flight.

Yeah- Then again the passenger's could be so s--t faced as to not even give a rat's A--!

Would the plane immediately yaw?

No.

Would it definately be noticeable?

Well you would certainly notice something if it were a 737 or other similar two-engined plane.

I would think regardless of the planes capabilities to fly on a reduced number of engines the operating practice would be to reduce altitude and land as soon as possible.

_{(pic courtesy of Wiki)}

Oh no, not again.

How does the engine fail? Does it fall off the wing, which would, in most cases get more than passing notice from the passengers.

Does it just quit? Does it trail flames, liquid, parts?

Yaw? Depends on timing.

I'd rather have one fail at 30,000' than 300'.

When the middle engine of a three engine jet failed, it took out all three hydraulic control systems at one.

Iowa City.

The design of controls was not OK. Normally in case of failure of one there are automatic valves to stop leaks and the rest of hydraulics continue to be operational. redundancy has to be rightly done. It is even possible to work with only one of 3 but at lower performance level (lower speed of actuators since maximal flox is less and has to be shared).

When the middle engine of a three engine jet failed, it took out all three hydraulic control systems at one.

Iowa City.

I believe it was mechanical issue of the actuator......or was this a different incident I'm thinking of.

As I recall the turbofan exploded and took out all 3 hydraulic lines while they were in a gentle turn, and they could not fly straight after that.

They could alter the turn rate slightly using different throttle settings.

yes, that was exactly the case, there was a metallurgical flaw in the rotor hub and a rotor burst occurred, and because of the design of the system all three hydraulic systems were co-located in the tail section and the flying debris shredded all three hydraulic systems.

by utilizing differential throttle settings the pilot was able to somewhat control the aircraft in yaw. The pilot was able to perform a semi-controlled crash landing in Iowa Ciy after burning off as much fuel as possible. Since the hydraulic systems failed the landing gear would not actuate so he had to do a belly landing. at least half of the passengers survived, I do not believe the pilot or co-pilot did however but I could be wrong.

After I posted I recalled the turbo fan was suspect. But search efforts could not find anything. The airlines put out an award to find it, and a farmer found a big piece in his corn field.

And that is how they steered it somewhat, by throttling.

And if I remember correctly. the small city of Iowa City just did a rehearsal for a disaster like this with their emergency services just weeks(?) prior.

Alot of things were going the passengers way including experience.

Here is the NASA White paper on the incident.

http://pbma.nasa.gov/docs/public/pbma/images/msm/united232_sfcs.pdf

Airplanes for commercial flight in the US are certified to be able to take off on only one engine, should one engine (of a twin engine aircraft) fail during takeoff. Pilots are trained to handle such conditions.

If an engine should suffer a simple failure at altitude (nothing on fire, no electrical or hydraulic problems), it would continue on under ordinary circumstances. But there would be a number of contingencies that would have to be considered.

It is true that many regs do require that the plane be capable of take off on one engine, or three out of four. It has been years since I was more intimate with the regs, as they are applied in FARs for 135, or 121, or 91? FAR regs will allow for 3 engine takeoffs for ferry flights of particular aircraft, at certain weights.

(I'll not mention air density or CG loading.)

In general the robust systems of commercial jet liners are astounding and yaw at time of engine failure of a jet would be minimal on a multi engined jet.

By the time it was at altitude it may well have burned off enough fuel to give it great one engine range.

However if one goes out, the other might, and I'd be trying to put the thing down first chance I had, regardless. It was a long time before two holers were allowed for Transoceanic flights.

I have been in the cockpit of a Convair 240 that had had one of two engines catch fire at failure, that was put down in something like 2.5 minutes. By then the geardoors were burnt away. Main mechanic I worked with to replace the engine commented that there was a reason pilot seats were made of "brown leather".

P.S. Think in that case the fuel firewall cut off didn't work, but the prop feathers did, and they were near passing over the airport.

2 - I am also aware of a case where the 737 in service flew for months continuously out of CG as a sheet of steel weighing 5 thousand pounds was mistaken by ground crews as the floor of the baggage compartment.

The pilot told me that the engine had not stopped, but someone on the plane said that the inlet blades were not spinning. Wouldn't that indicate that the engine was not running? Also the piot told me that if the engine stopped at 35000 ft then there would not be enough air density at 35000 ft to maintain that altitude and we would have to descend to about 17000-20000 ft. Does that make sense?

Yes, that sounds reasonable, depending on the usual considerations of weight etc.

The earlier comments about reluctance to allow twin engine planes on long overwater flights was initiated in the days of piston powered planes.

Todays turbine engined planes are WAY MORE reliable. When the Round the World, Nonstop flight was planned a few years back, the choice was a Singe Jet Engine. !!

The reason for that design was reliability considerations and a comparison of two engined piston flight accomplished by some of the same folks years earlier.

Nightmare At 20,000 Feet

Technically speaking the engine is meant for giving thrust which enables the aeroplane to climb to a certain height and cruise at a certain speed. If one of the engine fails the thrust level comes down which result in the loss of altitude(height). But still the aeroplane could still sustain its flight with one engine. There is another aspect to this loss of engine thrust which would result in unbalanced thrust which would be eventually compensated by the flight controls.

Moreover even if both the engines fail the pilot could still glide the plane to safety if he has enough altitude which he will trade off for speed..

See nature allows you to get one parameter free but at the cost of the other..

If there were only one engine, the plane would become a glider. Drag would cause the plane to slow down. In order to maintain airspeed, the pilot would put the plane into a shallow dive, balancing rate of descent with maintaining airspeed so as to prevent a stall condition while looking for a place to land and making appropriate emergency radio communication with available ground facilities if possible.

Loss of power on one of the wing engines would cause the plane to turn towards the failed engine. The pilot would correct this by turning the aircraft away from the failed engine, so that the plane remains on-heading if at all possible. The rate of climb and the maximum airspeed would be compromised.

In an odd-numbered-engined aircraft, if the centre engine failed, there would be little need to correct the heading, though the rate of climb and maximum airspeed would be compromised.

It is a satisfying thought that the 4-engined Boeing 747 will continue to fly level and can be landed with 3 engines unavailable.

Depends on the aircraft and the situation (where any of the airspeed sensors damaged or taken offline when or before the engine failed?) but generally the aircraft would initially yaw until the rudder compensated for the off-axis thrust (either by the pilot or the autopilot), the aircraft would probably need to take a slightly nose down attitude to trade altitude for airspeed until the aircraft was at an altitude at which the lower airspeed could generate enough lift over the airfoils. 35-40K ft is generally the ceiling altitude for most airliners and at that altitude, both engines can barely generate enough airspeed to generate enough lift, so with one engine down, they would need to decend to find denser air for the wings to bite.

Is this question in reference to the Air France Airbus crash last year?

If it is a two engine plane and one fails, then the other will still take you "all the way to the scene of the crash".......Ron White

Which begs the question; Is a two engined plane that can fly on one engine more or less reliable than a four engined plane that can fly on 3 engines?