I did once see a spectacular surge on a TWA 747 walking home (ashford) early evening in the late 70s . LHR on easterlies aircraft headed for the west via Brecon had to make a long sweeping 180 degree turn while climbing up to the usual LHR 6000ft stop climb point. thaving lived next to LHR all my life abnormal engine sounds stuck in your mind-this one seemed like it was trying too hard and when it reached a point that would have been about due south of LHR it levelled off followed by a huge sheet of flame and black smoke like it had been hit by an AA shell and then just carried on -glad Iwasnt seated behind the wing. It was scary from the ground
re the Mauritius story BA -100 engine problems saw me and Mrs PB 'stranded ' in Seychelles from mid day Monday to Mid day Thursday . The plane arrived on time but had experienced engine problems on way down from Bahrain and although we were all boarded the captain eventually -after an hour passing said he wasn't happy departing SEZ with a dodgy engine with 1000 miles of ocean before any other and we would all have to get off.
Luckily our BnB room hadnt been released as the landlady had a policy of not releasing rooms until she saw the BA 74 depart. Nightmare for BA -spare engine shipped from Jo burg in Herc freighter , couldnt fly over several countries due apartheid, finally got to Sez in middle of huge thunderstorm and had to divert to Nairobi with out of hours crew who then had to recover and fly back to Sez where there were no proper facilities for doing engine changes .
God knows what if t cost BA as at the time Sez had small tourism sector and lots of pax were roomless with stories of male first class passengers having to doss on the beach for three nights (and BA wouldnt unload the bags).
We were lucky having three extra days at the airlines expense before heading on to Mauritius on what was my best ever biz trip itinerary , Seychelles,Mauritius and Nairobi over 24 days and because I ahd clocked up so much travelling over the past year my Company paid for Mrs PB to come too.(Silver lining and all thanks to P&W )