Well, to be fair, the passengers were also freaking out. From the New York Post: Boeing plane makes emergency landing after engine bursts into flames: 'I already sent goodbye texts'
A plane flying from Corfu, Greece to Dusseldorf, Germany experienced an engine problem. Of course it has 2 engines and is capable of flying on 1 engine.
I have looked for a technical explanation, but none is to be found. The media has video, and their level of engagement is "this looks scary." Or something.
A commenter on the Post says "compressor stall," followed by back firing.
The plane landed in Italy as a precaution. No one was hurt. The plane was not on fire. The engine did not "burst into flames." The plane was not crashing.
But none of those things make people click on stories.
You can find the video at the article linked above.
The late, much lamented Bill Langewische wrote quite a lot about how airline passengers are skittish little chickens. Granted he used to fly planes into storms to test them to their design specs before he became a journalist so he probably had somewhat abnormal preferences as far as these things go. He went on a hilarious rant about how chicken airline passengers are in one of his last interviews with Megyn Kelly about the Malaysian Air flight that disappeared.
ReplyDeleteA classic from BL:
https://archive.is/MLEJf