The captain of a Chinese carrier flying a B747-400, requested permission and landed at FRA (Frankfurt, Germany) for an unscheduled refueling stop.
The reason became soon apparent to the ground crew: The Number 3 engine had been shut down because it didn't look so good. It had apparently been no problem for the tough guys back in China:
they took some sturdy straps and wrapped them around several of the fan blades and the structures behind, thus stopping any unwanted windmilling of the engine inflight and causing unwanted vibrations in the shutdown engine.
After securing the engine, off they went into the wild blue yonder with another revenue-making flight from China to London, on only three engines!
With the increased fuel consumption, they got a bit low on fuel, and just set it down at the closest airport for a quick refill.
That's when the problems started: The Germans, who are kind of picky about this stuff, inspected the malfunctioning engine and immediately grounded the aircraft.
The airline operator had to send a chunk of money to get the first engine replaced (took about 10 days) The repair contractor decided to do some impromptu inspection work on the other engines, none of which looked all that great either.
The result: a total of 3 engines were eventually changed on this plane before it was permitted to fly again.
The engine departed Looking like this!!
anyone else heard of this incident?