TWO CRASHES
Passengers fleeing from AA383 | Photo courtesy Alan Lemery
28.10
P lane crashes don’ t occur very often but when they do they usually aren’ t fatal. Planes don’ t crash due to only one problem. It’ s usually a chain of events. The job of the pilots is to identify these problems and stop them from happening. Here in this article are two such events that hapened during the same day at Chicago O’ Hare International Airport, USA.
AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 383
On the 28th October 2016 an American Airlines flight 383- a Boeing 767 registration( N345AN) was taking off from the world’ s second busiest airport, Chicago O’ Hare International Airport, on a daily flight to Miami. During the takeoff roll the plane’ s number two engine burst into flames, which forced the pilot to abort the takeoff and make an emergency stop on the runway. When the aircraft came to a full stop all passengers were forced to immediately evacuate as the right engine caused the right wing to catch fire and there was a risk of explosion. All of the 170 passengers onboard escaped but some were taken to the hospital due to minor injuries. What caused the problem? It sounds unbelievable but sometimes, small parts can cause big or even fatal crashes. The NTSB( National Transportation Safety Board) investigation into the cause of the explosion is still ongoing. But here’ s what we know: American Airlines and the NTSB say the explosion was caused by a disk located in the rear portion of the engine, where burning fuel races past fan blades to spin the turbine. The disk was found to be broken in four pieces about 890m away from the explosion. The NTSB had found several cracks on the disk which weren’ t caused by the explosion and likely led to the crash. This GE CF6 engine was built in 1997.
SOME FACTS ABOUT THE BOEING 767-300ER
LENGTH 54.94m WING SPAN 47.57m MAX PASSENGERS 290 MAX CRUISE SPEED 486kn / 900kph
4
MAX RANGE 7200km MTOW 158,758kg