Many people are afraid to fly. They fear that the engines will fail or something will break off. I myself used to have a fear of flying, until I faced my fear and became a pilot. I learned all about redundancy and how airplanes won’t just fall out of the sky. Flying is such an amazing experience that you should not be scared of.

Airplanes require thrust to fly which comes from the engine(s). They also require electrical power. The power required to run the systems on the aircraft usually comes from the engines. Therefore if the engines fail, the pilots will not have electrical power for their systems.

If all plane engines fail, the plane won’t fall out of the sky. In reality, planes can fly for approximately 60 miles after losing engines at an altitude of 36,000 ft. Aircraft are designed to glide in the air even when the engine doesn’t produce thrust. In fact, most aircraft will have at least 20-30 minutes to find somewhere to land when all engines fail.

Reasons Airline engines fail

Icing

Icing is very common in airplanes. As you climb higher the standard lapse rate is 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit every thousand feet. If there is visible moisture, such as a cloud and it is near or below freezing level you will pick up ice.

There are three types of icing; rime, clear, and mixed. Rime icing is similar to the ice on the walls of your freezer. It is cold enough to trap oxygen in the middle. Due to the air getting trapped, rime ice is very light and easy to see.

Clear ice is similar to freezing rain. The supercooled water droplets hit the wing surface which is very cold when flying! The wing is so cold because of the speed at which the aircraft is flying through the air and the low pressure created from the wing.

Clear ice is the most dangerous because it is harder to detect and is very heavy. The final type is mixed which is a mixture of both clear and rime. Mixed is quite rare, but could also be very dangerous if not caught.

Airplanes have anti-ice and de-ice systems. Anti-ice systems will prevent ice from forming. The engine cowlings can be heated from hot bleed air from the engines.

A common de-ice system is de-ice fluid. The fluid can be deployed out of very tiny holes along the wing and other important areas. The fluid will melt the ice pretty quick. Pneumatic boots are also a de-ice system. Pneumatic boots are rubber-like areas on the leading edge of the wing. The boots can expand like a balloon and knock the ice off.

Foreign debris

The turbine and the large blades are spinning at 3000-4000 RPM. There are a lot of moving parts moving fast and if foreign debris such as a bird can really destroy an airline engine really fast! These bird strikes commonly happen during take-off and landing as you would expect. However, there are many countermeasures to this occurring.

If there are a large amount of birds near the airport, the airport staff will attempt to scare them away. They have many options such as driving vehicles towards them, shooting blanks out of a shotgun, or air cannons.

Overstress

With so many parts moving so fast a lot of them can break. Engine overstress is not very common, but it could cause catastrophic failure to the engine. Overstress occurs when the engine is moving faster and working harder than designed to.

Similar to your car, if you overstress the engine a few times it probably won’t break. But constantly driving at high RPMs will cause parts to fail catastrophically.

There are many systems and procedures to prevent this from happening on an airline. Pilots will monitor many gauges such as the fan blade speed, oil temperature, and engine pressure. Pilots are trained from day one to monitor their gauges on small training planes, and that training continues all the way through the airlines.

Maintenance errors

Maintenance errors can and have occurred. These events are rare, but when something does happen it is memorable.

American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979 is a perfect example. The maintenance crew were replacing the engine days before. During a shift change the maintenance crew turned off the forklift that was holding the engine up to the wing. When you turn off a forklift it loses some hydraulic pressure. This loss of pressure caused the engine to lower slightly.

When the next shift came, they did not notice the mistake. The DC-10’s engine completely fell off during takeoff and there was nothing the crew could have done. All occupants on the plane were sadly killed in the accident.

Like most aviation regulations, they are written in blood. Whenever tragedy occurs in the industry, new regulations are put in place to prevent a similar accident. Aviation has had a long time to grow and learn. For this reason, accidents are less common each year. We are living in the safest period of aviation history.

Reasons to not fear airline engine failures

Pilot training

One of the first lessons any pilot learns is how to maneuver the aircraft and land without their engine. Throughout their entire training and recurrent training, pilots practice so that it is second nature.

Each year there are about 10-30 events where an airline in America loses an engine. Some famous recent incidents are Ural Airlines Flight 178, or Captain Sully landing an A320 into the Hudson river with no engine. These events are highlighted below.

Engine failures may be more common than you think, but they are not usually fatal. Airline pilots are the most trained in the world. They are required to have 1500 hours before flying passengers in the airlines.

Aircraft redundancy

Airliners have systems called the auxiliary power unit (APU) and the ram air turbine (RAT). The APU is a miniature jet engine in the tail of the aircraft. When powered, the APU provides electrical power. This is how airplanes start-up as well. You can actually hear the APU when you’re boarding the airplane. It sounds just like a jet engine.

The other redundant system is the RAT. The RAT will deploy automatically when there is a loss of power. It looks like a large fan that deploys under the airplane and uses the fast air around the plane to turn the blades.

When the blades are turning, hydraulic and electrical power can be restored allowing the pilots to manipulate the flight controls and use electrical systems to make a safe landing.

Real examples where Airline engines have failed

Captain Sully’s A320

US Airways Flight 1549 was scheduled to take off from LaGuardia in New York, and land in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Shortly after takeoff, the plane carrying 150 passengers hit a flock of Canadian Geese. Both engines were destroyed instantly.

Captain Sullenberger, famously known as Sully, and co-pilot Jeff Skiles immediately turned on the APU. The RAT had automatically deployed, and the plane was receiving electrical and hydraulic power. If they had not turned the APU on or the RAT did not deploy, the plane would not have been able to be controlled. With the RAT alone, the plane would be able to be controlled adequately.

After landing the plane in the Hudson river, an immediate rescue operation took place. All 150 passengers and the entire crew survived the crash with minimal injuries.

Ural Airlines Flight 178

Ural Airlines Flight 178 was a passenger flight from Moscow to Crimea. The flight had 233 occupants, including crew and passengers. There were seven injuries and zero fatalities. The engine failed due to a flock of birds being ingested into the engines.

The left engine completely failed, and the right engine was severely damaged. The pilots, Georgy Murzin and Damir Yusupov. They both had excellent training, and turned on the APU right after the engines were destroyed. They glided the plane into a cornfield and landed the airplane safely.

Conclusion

If you are afraid of flying due to a fear of the engines failing, you have nothing to fear. Engine failures do happen, but they are rare and have a low fatality rate. If there is an engine failure in a plane you are flying on, do not worry. There are many redundant systems installed on the aircraft. Pilots are also trained very well, and engine out procedures are drilled into their heads from day one. You do not need to fear any longer.