A thorn in my side...
I'm afraid you have it all wrong.
What you meant to say is:
"50 year old DC3 cracks two cylinders, flight crew does great job of bringing aircraft back to earth with no damage or loss of life"
Doesn't that feel better?
Were you on the acft? How many thousands of DC3 hours do you have? Have you done the performance figures for this acft? Then subtracted 50 years worth of degradation? Come on mate, they blew 2 pots! Cracked two cylinders! So what? "Severe engine damage"- you should have been a news reporter... Of course there's going to be racket and a bit of smoke, but 1.5 engines beats only 1 engine any day- just ask the poor sods who went swimming in Botany Bay as i'm sure they would have appreciated another half an engine.
Apologies if i sound harsh as i do hope you meant it as some sort of mis-guided question- although the "one would think it wise..." bit leaves much to be desired... Read what you have written as if you were in the LHS and leave the second guessing of the PiC to the non-aviation types who are hell-bent on hanging us on any technicality. Pls do us all a favour next time and think about what you say/write before you start muck-racking.
End of lecture
HJ