Originally Posted by
DHfan
My knowledge of airliners is extremely limited, and even that's probably generous, but I'm surprised that overwater flights of those sorts of distances were allowed with only two engines in those days.
The piston twins were the ones that needed to be kept close to land in case of engine problems. Even though they had only two engines, the early jet engines were still a big step up in reliability, so a Caravelle could easily fly longer overwater sectors. Out of 64 hull-loss accidents, 27 incurred fatalities and of those, only three accidents were due to an engine problem, either ascertained or suspected.
See:
https://aviation-safety.net/database...ravelle/losses