Terror plane in fireball falls out of the sky and only just manages to land at an unscheduled destination – passengers close to death but swear they will seek compensation for worst moment of their lives!

but airlines might not buy RR engines after this

I guess that puts the whole A350 project in jeopardy! 😉

It was a major incident and one that was very lucky to have the plane land safely, but this won’t be the end of RR. This is not the first time any type of engine has had major problems. And if the RR civil aerospace venture does somehow fail, perhaps they can fall back on the billions they earn through military and industrial contracts.

This future Queen is a heck of a lot better looking than the current one!

Potential future contenders for the Darwin Awards. Perhaps further evidence of why selective breeding should be enforced.

I’m not attempting to downplay this event and I don’t want to come across as immediately jumping to Boeing’s defence, but….I would presume that for a company who decided to design, manufacture and fly a composite aircraft; Boeing will have conducted numerous composite panel failure tests including exposure to heat and fire. At least I would hope so! Of course this is serious and there will be many questions for years to come regarding composite structural integrity, but does that mean we should never fly composite aircraft? I’m sure the benefits outweigh the risks; why else would Airbus do exactly the same and design their own composite aircraft.

And think back to the days when aircraft switched from sheet metal aircraft design to pressurized structures with ‘fancy’ electronic systems. The aviation industry pushed the boundaries then, and reaped tremendous rewards. The large aircraft industry is almost stagnant after the introduction of the A380. We need new composite aircraft and smart electrical systems as game-changers so the industry can continue to progress and grow.

Exactly what I’ve always thought. Reminds me of those genius couple of sketches in That Mitchell and Webb Look where they are toothbrush inventors and are boasting about getting people to buy toothbrushes with a rubber ‘tongue brush’ on the other side of the brush. They then go on to decide they will be able to sell a toothbrush with a knife on the other end if they tell people they need it 😀

Similar to what happened to that 737 last year http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=92479&highlight=737?

They have had a run of bad luck. These two engine events in the past few days and the other uncontained engine failure back in August. Then a couple of years ago they had that oxygen bottle explode and the A330 the same year that had a couple of rapid decent moments when the computer had a hissy fit.

Be it bad luck or something else, you can’t deny Qantas have had a bit of a rough time recently compared to other airlines!