F27 prop failure at CDG
Hi guys I am new to this, actually retired. I flew F27's and may well have flown the very same aircraft as I have been detached to MNL for a while.
If so, it would have been Swiss registered at the time.
For the record: this was NOT an accident but an incident. Nobody was injured. The aircraft landed safely.
Fortunately, blade separation is exceedingly rare.
I was a pilot for over 45 years and not counting piston-engined aircraft or jets I flew probably close to 8000 hours on turboprops: Shorts Skyvan, 3-60, Metroliner, King Air 200, ATR 42, Fairchild FH227, Fokker 50 and about 4500 hours on the Fokker F 27. I never encountered a blade separation.
Looking at the pics, my guess is that the sequence of events went as follows:
A hub failure caused a blade to separate.
This blade flew straight through the fuselage. The sides are protected against damage from ice flung off the prop but the reinforcements are no match for a blade flying off at high power. It had so much energy that it went straight out through the other side. But by that time most of the energy would have been expended so it did not hit the other engine.
A cargo plane does not carry passengers and there are no vital systems in the area the blade passed through so all systems continued to operate as normal.
The blade separation would have caused severe vibrations, enough to shear off the front part of the engine with the remainder of the prop instantly. These parts would have totally different aerodynamic characteristics and would have fallen downwards without doing any more damage.
Return to the airport on one engine would have been routine, I have had to return an F27 on one engine twice, nothing to it. But the crew must have been very shaken by the event and are to be complimented with the obviously highly professional way the incident was handled.
This scenario is my own educated guess. It will be interesting to read the official findings of the investigation.