Originally Posted by
scifi
What is left of the engine should be able to spin without causing much vibration.
Might you mean pie in the sky?
However, the passengers felt a lot of vibration for several seconds.
Yes.
This seems to imply that the fan broke up in sequence... First one blade detached, then the vibration caused all the bolts to fail, and what was left of the fan disk spun off forwards.
.
Yes a sequence as long as your arm and more! For my money, and admittedly it is a statement of the bleedin' obvious, I reckon the bright sparks will eventually compute from the available remains that there was a lot more going on after the first thing broke than had previously been computer-modelled. And personally from a little reading around the subject, I have little doubt that at some stage - milliseconds or possibly whole seconds after the first thing broke - a somewhat massive lump came off in a dizzying non axi-symmetric whirl, having long since (well a few seconds anyway!) given up the momentum of its original purpose to something more of a sling shot effect, and in passing gave the wing leading edge (some distance behind the fan case not forward of it) quite a ding!
I really would love to see that tail fin video - but will we ever? Anyone know if footage is retained informally other than by passengers who happen to be filming the screens on the backs of seats?