Jet engine query

I was back in UK by then but I seem to recall it made our national papers too.

Any idea what year it was? Theres a good chance I was in Germany at the time and the accident seems to ring a bell.

I would guess sometime very late 60’s, or(more likely) early-mid seventies.

Paul F

P.S. Just googled and found out 06/09/1971 D-ALAR, after departing Hamburg Fuhlsbuttel. 22 out of 121 on board were killed.

Shortly after take-off from Hamburg both Rolls Royce engines quit. A forced landing was carried out on the Hamburg-Kiel Autobahn E45. The aircraft collided with a bridge, causing both wings to be sheared off. The 1-11 burnt out. Taken from AviationSafety Network.

Any idea what year it was? Theres a good chance I was in Germany at the time and the accident seems to ring a bell.

A slight aside on the water injection issue – IIRC there was a case when an airliner (BAC1-11?)had its water tanks mistakenly filled with jet fuel (kerosene) instead of water.

From memory, when the water injection system was activated during takeoff the injection and ignition of the additional kerosene rapidly over heated critical areas of the turbines and burnt/melted the turbine blades. Result was a serious loss of power just when a power increase was critical, and end result was a forced landing on, or across, a (German?) motorway.

Can anyone confirm or correct this?

Paul F

Also the fact that a jet engine relies less on quantity of fuel than weight of the fuel. Hence the specially formulated fuel used in the SR-71. The heavier you can make the fuel the better (I take it this refers to SG rather than physical weight of the fuel). That was the purpose of the 50 gal water tank in the Harrier. When in the hover water from the tank was injected into the engine to boost its power.

i thought that injecting water (which i had forgotten about!!) was just to cool the air down to make it more dense?- or is that what you mean?

Jet engines produce more thrust when flying through rain. Remember from school Force = Mass x Acceleration. Acceleration is the same as in dry conditions but the mass of the accelerated gasses has increased, therefore more force is created. This is one of the reasons why some engines such as the RR Dart and the P&W JT8 have water tanks (sometimes with added methanol) to actually squirt water into the intakes.

Well firstly it is very hot in a jet engine and any normal amount of rain would rapidly turn to steam. The quantity of water in the air literally wouldn’t dampen down the fuel:air mix. Plus the spinner I believe flings precipitate straight into the bypass.

A turboprop is slightly different …

There was a passenger jet, I think DC-9, whose jets did not stay lit in rain and both shut down. Afterwards there were engine tests to replicate the problem, and the engineers could not shut down jet engines even with hoses. But it really happened to a plane – I do not remember which the outcome was, either it landed on a levee and later took off from the levee, or else it tried landing on a highway and wings met obstacles, with many victims.

Well done, you’re only the second person to actually mention it re: Chuck. 😉

Darnit just thought, I forgot to ask for the RR Jet Engine book for Christmas 🙁

I was getting there- just after i posted that question!!- Thanks, anyway BR (or do i mean Chuck??)

Well firstly it is very hot in a jet engine and any normal amount of rain would rapidly turn to steam. The quantity of water in the air literally wouldn’t dampen down the fuel:air mix. Plus the spinner I believe flings precipitate straight into the bypass.

A turboprop is slightly different …