headintheclouds46
5 HN mentions · mentioned in 5 months, 2015–2019
9:37 · 7.5M views · May 2, 2007
Amateur footage of a Thomsonfly 757 ingesting a bird on takeoff from Manchester, with a flaming engine and a safe return, with 233 people aboard.
HN links it as a vivid example of a bird strike taking out an engine, and praises the calm crew and ATC response.
5 comments from Hacker News
> Takeoff is a very critical phase of flight. Instantaneous engine failure plus partial control surface loss and fuel fires could easily overwhelm a pilot Continued takeoff after failure of a single engine is certification requirement for the aircraft, and is trained frequently by pilots. See the Thompson 757 A330 bird ingestion, engine failure, and successful landing in 2007: this video However, sometimes the outcome is less benign, as in the TransAsia 235 crash where apparently pilots shut down the wrong (working) engine: [LINK] [LINK] Failure of more than one engine is always going to be, well, problematic (the Miracle on the Hudson notwithstanding). And, as you point out, uncontained engine failure (while rare) can screw all sorts of things up. So, while I disagree somewhat with "could easily overwhelm a pilot" and "nearly bought down the plane" regarding Qantas 32, all in all I'm afraid you're right...
Yet sometimes a single bird will take out an engine: this video Modern engines are designed to contain the damage, and multi-engine jets are designed to be able to maintain control, climb to a safe altitude, and return to the airport with an engine out, so flying a small drone into an engine probably won't cause a major disaster, but it will cause a lot of disruption as the plane declares an emergency and returns to the airport, and cost a lot of money to repair or replace the engine. One of the suggested videos for that one was interesting. It's a video from a forward facing camera in an F-16 as it gets hit by a bird, which shuts down the engine. The pilot tries for a while to restart, fails, ejects, and the plane crashes: [LINK]
This video [0] of a bird strike on a 757 always makes my heart beat faster. For the first time, I just counted the timing. Bird strike is at ~10 seconds. Pilot waits until ~20 seconds to call "Mayday". Only at ~32 seconds does he shut down the damaged engine. If the Taipei pilot had taken the same time to get his bearings before acting, everyone might have survived. In terms of the value of training, I love how cooly the air traffic controller responds to the Mayday. [0] this video
Similar recording of the BA crash at Heathrow. I am always impressed how professional they do things: [LINK] Another one of an engine failure at Manchester - the response of the ATC within 1 second of the mayday call is plain amazing: this video
With you… like this Thomson plane that had a failure due to bird ingestion during take off at Manchester - this video