[Just concerned and a bit more knowledgeable than average SLF here, long time passionate reader, few posts as my profile says, sorry to intrude, kindly bear with me]
The subject of the probability of a second engine failure has been touched at the beginning of this thread, but not discussed much later.
I have a question here: of course the maths say that it's exactly as probable as the first failure, but what do the engineers say? There must be some extra stress put on the remaining engine even if the flight level is decreased, isn't it?
I'd assume that the remaining engine must be running at a higher thrust than usual for up to 5 hours and a half, isn't this changing the odds a little bit? Pushing things even further: what about prolonged asymmetrical thrust? isn't this possibly altering the airflow to the engine and causing some different forces to apply? (if not to the engine, to the pylon?)
Side note: I suffer from mild fear of flying (hence PPrune as my therapy
), and I usually feel a lot safer aboard a quad. The posts above really are food for thought!