Way OT, Ommercial airliners

I'm sure someone on here has military or airline knowledge that can answer this.
Talking with my wife this morning about the airline engine that exploded in Chicago the other night. Thankfully this happened on the ground if I heard correctly, but if this would have happened in the air is it guaranteed to go down in a crash? Or could the plane have made it back on one engine?

Once you get airborne there are no guarantees. :-( That's why you have more than one engine. While not a guarantee the aircraft can fly on one engine for an extended period of time, remember the Southwest engine explosion a few weeks ago. Losing an engine on takeoff is routinely practiced on simulators with airlines and in the cockpit with the military. I assure you that a heavyweight B767 is a handful on one engine but it will fly.

All airliners can fly after an engine failure above V1 speed (takeoff decision speed). Below that speed is a rejected takeoff while still having enough runway to stay on the hard surface. All this assumes other systems i.e. Brakes and flight controls etc remain working.

(quoted from post at 05:28:10 10/30/16) I'm sure someone on here has military or airline knowledge that can answer this.
Talking with my wife this morning about the airline engine that exploded in Chicago the other night. Thankfully this happened on the ground if I heard correctly, but if this would have happened in the air is it guaranteed to go down in a crash? Or could the plane have made it back on one engine?

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Supposedly the manufacturer test the engine to see if an explosion will be contained within the motor itself. There is a youtube video showing a test by Rolls-Royce to show that a fan blade separation will be contained. but a Quantas flight once had this issue and the parts went thru the wing.

As someone else said, there are no guarantees in the air. It depends on whether they simply lose the engine, or whether there are systems damage, whether there is a fire and whether or not the extinguishing system puts it out, etc.

The closest I was ever to a situation like that was once in an Air National Guard C-54 four piston engine airplane an engine blew about 50 feet off the deck on takeoff. I felt a "thump" in the airplane and saw a puff of smoke come out from under the right wing. The pilot then came on the squawk box and said, "We just lost our starboard inboard engine. We will land immediately and the flight will terminate".

He banked the airplane around to the left and made a routine landing. I emphasize "left" because you NEVER bank into a dead engine.

It can return on one engine provided no other control surfaces are damaged. The airliner that had an engine fall off due to cracked mounting pylons DC 10? ...would have been able to land safely had the engine not damaged the spoiler as it went over the wing, resulting in that spoiler not retracting while the other side did, causing the wing to drop. Another instance saw the fan of an engine shatter and severed hydraulic controls to the rudder. Good airman ship goes a long way, but cannot recover from all situations. Ben

It would probably be OK as long as it did not damage a common system or start catastrophic fire.

(quoted from post at 06:52:50 10/30/16) As someone else said, there are no guarantees in the air. It depends on whether they simply lose the engine, or whether there are systems damage, whether there is a fire and whether or not the extinguishing system puts it out, etc.

The closest I was ever to a situation like that was once in an Air National Guard C-54 four piston engine airplane an engine blew about 50 feet off the deck on takeoff. I felt a "thump" in the airplane and saw a puff of smoke come out from under the right wing. The pilot then came on the squawk box and said, "We just lost our starboard inboard engine. We will land immediately and the flight will terminate".

He banked the airplane around to the left and made a routine landing. I emphasize "left" because you NEVER bank into a dead engine.

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DEAD ENGINE,DEAD FOOT!

I was on a DC10 coming home from Germany and it made an emergency landing in England. We landed way away from the terminal and they bused us to an isolated area on the air field so we did not have to go thru customs again. Almost as soon as the plane stopped moving there was a crew there tearing the engine apart. They put us on another plane and headed home

All current commercial aircraft must be able to suffer a contained engine failure and still successfully land at the nearest emergency runway. I've shutdown at least 10 engines in flight on 4, 3, and 2 engine aircraft over a 45 year span of flying. Losing one engine is an emergency procedure but crews train yearly in simulators for such a situation and even dual engine failure at altitude. Engine failures that aren't contained in the engine shroud present other problems as parts from the exploding engine can cut electrical, fuel, hydraulic, flight control and pneumatic systems creating addition flight safety issues. Fire on an aircraft is one of the most critical and dangerous situations crews face as getting the aircraft on the ground from 35-40 thousand feet takes time and the aircraft structure, crew, and passengers can be compromised if they can't do it quickly. Overseas flights must have an alternate field available (ETOPS) that the crew must divert to if they lose an engine on a two engine airliner like the Boeing 777 or 787 while the Airbus 380 with 4 engines also have divert bases but the rules are different as they have 4 engines. Quick answer...yes you can fly after losing an engine but it is a bit more complicated from a technical standpoint on takeoff but I'll save you the long dissertation. Airliners are extremely safe and unlike the local driving population, you have to be highly skilled and trained before the FAA will allow a crewmember to have a window seat.

Several good comments here. Airliners are certified under FAA rules that require the plane to be able to fly on one engine at maximum takeoff weight this includes continuing a takeoff and climbing out once having reached a safe speed known as V1. V1 changes based on weight and atmosphere and is calculated for each flight.

Light twin engine private planes are certified under different rules and are NOT required to demonstrate adequate performance on one engine.

Pilots train for and practice "V1 cuts" in the simulator and tested frequently on them during checkrides and proficiency checks.

As for AA 383 the other day it was fortunate that they were able to abort on the runway. The engine loss is highly survivable but in this case there was a resultant fire which may have threatened structural integrity of the wing. Each engine has fire suppression system but it is designed for a fire within the nacelle. An engine fire in the nacelle is not that big of a deal.

A turbine or fan hub explosion is very rare but not impossible. As someone mentioned, the last famous one was the united DC10 that ultimately crash landed in Sioux City. A turbine hub exploded and cut lines associated with all three separate hydraulic systems. The odds of such an occurrence were seen as too remote by the engineers but it did happen.

The DC-10 accident was caused by a crack in a turbine fan wheel assembly that exploded in the #2 engine that is in the tail tunnel. The fan turbine actually screwed itself out the tunnel and cut through the hydraulic lines that were routed in the top of the fuselage. After the Sioux City accident, McDonnell Aircraft Co modified the hydraulic system with a "Sioux City Valve" (check valve) to cutoff leakage in the tail section. Basically the intent was to save hydraulic quantity and pressure to the forward flight controls to aid control of the aircraft. We practiced running and executing the checklist created for dealing with the Sioux City scenario in the simulator every year using only the throttles and differential thrust to landing. Trust me it was not easy to land safely and required perfect crew coordination and some luck.

An engine exploding is nothing new. Here is a case where pilot made a controlled crash without hydraulics.

United Airlines Flight 232, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, on 19 July 1989. A fan disk in the No. 2 engine fractured, severing most of the flight controls. Dennis Fitch, a deadheading DC-10 instructor who had studied the case of JAL Flight 123, was able to help the pilots steer the aircraft using throttle differential. Despite the break-up of the aircraft on landing, 175 of 285 passengers and 10 of the 11 crew members survived.[3]

I'm sure you can find the video of the infamous landing.

The crew did amazing job on that one. I always enjoyed the interviews with Al Hanes and the other crewmembers. The company used those and other examples in the CRM classes. I don't think they show those as much anymore as they shifted some of their focus to Threat & Error Management. Only so much time available for recurrent and new hire training has been becoming more computer based. (mistake IMO)