Lufthansa incident in 2000
This is an incident which took place four years ago on February 22nd 2000 on Lufthansa's Frankfurt-Dublin flight.
I have only recently discovered this forum and I was just interested in knowing if anyone had heard of this incident and/or could shed some light on it for me.
I was a passenger aboard this flight. As I recall, just a couple of minutes after take off from Frankfurt there was a loud "explosion" noise on the aircraft, an Airbus A-321. The aircraft became quite unstable at that stage. Passengers behind me screamed looking out the window, we were near the rear of the a/c, and as I looked out the window I saw a stream of fire coming from the back of the left engine (this was extinguished/stopped just after I looked out).
After what seemed an eternity yet may have only been five minutes the pilot informed us of what was happening, mainly in German,. The only thing we caught in English was that this engine was now on "idle" and we would have to return to Frankfurt. We were told to prepare for an emergency landing, yet no instrructions on how to do so were given. Thanks to the pilot's apparent skill, we landed safely some 20-30 minutes later. Approach was a frightening experience given the large number of flashing lights we could see below awaiting us.
We were parked at a remote area and kept on board for at least an hour! Lufthansa wanted to put us straight on a new aircraft. Many shaken passengers, including myself, didn't want to continue the flight, at least for the time being. They refused and even brought the police on the aircraft to ensure we went to the enxt plane. After many raised voices, and a passenger who was a doctor insisting that shocked PAX not be forced to continue, we were allowed off. The story continues on our initially "terrible" treatment, but I don't want to bore you.
I have always loved aviation and enjoyed flying. I have close family connections in the industry but I'm not in it myself. I beacme very nervous regarding flying for some time, and still am not very happy during take off. I believe this was in part due to the cold treatment given by Lufthansasa cabin crew and ground staff. I know we're all humans and they may have been shaken, but the ground staff? My parents had an emergency landing with Iberia in the late 80's and praised the kindness of all the crew on board and the ground staff at Barcelona.
Any info or ideas?