UA1175 emergency landing Honolulu
 

Can't find pictures on the news yet, just this Twitter video from the B777 as it heads back squawking 7700:


What happened to the engine? Doesn't look like a smooth ride for the pax.

I watched this on Planefinder earlier and I was sure it showed the aircraft as flying from SFO to Honolulu. ?

Sorry, you're right. SFO to HNL. Seems to have been about an hour out from landing?

Landed without further incident at HNL. Firefighting equipment and personnel standing by upon landing at pilot's request.

Apparently fitted with a pair of Pratts and looks like this aircraft could be one of the airline's oldest triple sevens.

So, speculating solely from the pix (and text) in the NYT article (link below), how much engine damage was done, was the engine shut down, what airframe risks did not occur, and was a safe landing in doubt?


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/u...ine-cover.html

Educated guess based on the damage and the passenger descriptions is a fan blade separation. That'll cause massive vibration - bad enough that it's been known to cause the inlet to depart...

From the photos, I would say it is just a cowling failure including acoustic barrel. I don’t believe there is any damage or failure of blades. Kevlar shroud appears intact, if a bit tired and discoloured.

Why would the Captain have chosen to call for a "Brace" landing?
Would it be standard procedure to send the F/O back to take a look?
I suppose these days you could just ask a flight attendant to take a few photos with their phone..

No
Possibly
Maybe

The cowls are secured by a number of latches. Given the sophistication of the systems to ensure cowls do not open and become detached in flight, what would have caused such an occurrence?

One option is a “rapid disassembly” of parts inside, such as the front fan. Once the cowling has been seriously damaged, air pressure will do the rest...

At least one blade looks damaged: - see the 219s of a clip.

I guess that wasn't his first time with the cowling.

No, it definitely lost one entire fan blade and about a third of the adjacent one.

http://www.avgen.com/ua1175.jpg

http://www.avgen.com/ua1175(2).jpg

Towards the end of cruise, the NL will be well below red line so to lose the intake and fan cowl doors as well - presuming the fan blade loss was the primary failure - is unexpected. The reports give the impression that the intake was lost early on and not as a result of sustained out of balance during rundown/shutdown or windmill.

There is video of the other side of the engine. It looks like a fan blade has gone through it and damaged enough of the cowling to cause it to come off.

The kevlar shroud is damaged on its starboard side (away from fuselage). There is interesting scoring on the inside of the intake duct. Would that be caused by fan movement caused by imbalance? Or indicate an object was caught between fan blade tips and the duct?

LMAO... You beat me to it.

the brace, brace, brace chant was unusual..

So was all of them holding their cellphones....

(paxbrit...you can change the thread title by going to edit post..advanced)

Doesn't matter how old it is. Seems like we were sold "way back when" that all the extra care done for an ETOPS operation would keep this kind of stuff from happening. This wasn't just a loss of oil pressure.