Boeing 747-400 with 468 people aboard was forced to make an emergency landing in Indonesia on Wednesday after one of its engines caught fire and began shooting out flames during takeoff.

The Garuda Indonesia flight was bound for Medina, Saudi Arabia, which is the entry point for many Muslims making their pilgrimage to Mecca. It left from Indonesia’s international airport in Makassar, where clips showed one of the plane’s four engines becoming engulfed in flames during takeoff on Wednesday evening.

Videos of the engine fire were shared online by JACDEC, a plane crash data evaluation firm, which showed that the flames began just as the plane had lifted from the runway.

  • mercano@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The last 747-400 passenger plane rolled off the production line in 2005. This is either going to be a maintenance issue or the engine ingesting debris or a bird, not faulty construction. Boeing doesn’t even make the engines, it’s either GE, Pratt & Whitney, or Rolls Royce, depending on the original owner’s preference.

    • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      This here. As much as I hate the new Boeing philosophy, they used to build good planes and this issue is most certainly a maintenance problem or bird strike etc…

    • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Look, your facts and logic have no place in this angry mob. Either pick up a pitchfork and get with the program, or get out.

      • tb_@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Boeing is under increased public awareness, any issues get picked up and amplified by the news.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Ok but how does this stuff keep happening to Boeing planes?

        Shit happens to lots of planes. You just hear about the Boeing ones because reporting on them is in vogue.

        I recently set up FlightRadar24 to alert me whenever a plane anywhere in the world starts squawking 7700, the emergency code. It’s REMARKABLE how often it happens. At least a few times per day, it seems like. There are well over 100,000 flights every day, and occasionally stuff goes wrong.

        (And yet, whenever a fatal commercial air incident occurs it’s global news, because those are still exceptionally rare.)

      • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        Airbus has a ton of new planes grounded due to engine failures since before the door blowout. But you won’t hear about it because shitting on Boeing is what got clicks instead.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Why would it being a maintenance problem make it any better at all?

      “Don’t worry guys, the planes aren’t inherently defective, we’re just not maintaining them correctly!”

      Super comforting.

      • mercano@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Every time a Boeing plane has issues these days people are quick with low effort “Boeing bad” posts. Maintenance isn’t Boeing’s responsibility, it’s the airline’s.

  • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    This is another article that claimed a jet engine burst into flames, when all that happened was an engine surge. The engine didn’t catch fire, the engine did the jet version of a backfire, and only once during the takeoff roll.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Thank you for reading the article and educating us. The thumbnail image looks like the plane is about to disintegrate!

      • notabot@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago
        • Bird in for service

        Bird mechanic sucks teeth: well, the wings are out of alignment and some cowboy’s got the quack valve out of alignment. I can fix it, but it isn’t going to be cheep. Mind you, if you fly it like this you’re likely to have a nasty accident.

        Customer: I know your tricks! Stop trying to up-sell me. I only brought it in for a beak polish. I’m going and I’m going to leave a bad review on twitter!

        Bird takes off, immediately veers into the path of a plane, which promptly bursts into flames.

        Bird mechanic: Told you.

      • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Bird ingestion, or other foreign object damage can cause engine surges. Youtube video shows a 757 surging immediately after a bird strike. Looks very similar to the footage of this incident.

        The 757’s engine continues to surge during the climbout. The footage linked by this article only shows the takeoff roll.

  • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    completed an approximately 90-minute holding pattern before safely returning to and landing in Makassar.

    Lol wtf!? I get that it was past the point of no return and had to commit to take off but a 90 min wait to land again seems insane.

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      My guess is that they wanted the plane to use up most of the fuel before attempting the landing. As long as the plane is flying, the speed of the plane adds a level of safety to the fire. Once the plane lands and slows down, that fire would start affecting the rest of the wing much more, but there can’t be a big kaboom anymore if the fuel tanks are empty.

      • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Long distance 747 flighs usually take off above the maximum landng weight. They need to get rid of the fuel before landing, but the 400 has the ability to dump fuel.

        The engine wasn’t on fire. The engine had a surge on takeoff. They would have shut the engine off as it might have been damaged, but the plane was not on fire. They would have landed much sooner if it was.

        Many articles describe engine surges with language that, while not technically a lie, is written to make readers conclude that the airplane is actually on fire.

    • derf82@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Landing overweight can be even more dangerous. The engine was shut down and they can fly just fine on 3 engines.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Plane was not on fire. Passengers were in no immediate danger. Its safer to keep flying and prepare than make a hasty landing for no reason.

  • HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Here come more derpwads that don’t understand that airline maintenance is a thing and Boeing has nothing to do with this

    • Oneser@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Zoom out to the 5 year graph and it tells another story.

      Also such events (which are non-catastrophic) are not entirely uncommon.

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        To me, it seems like these events are way beyond common. A single accident (even catastrophic) would be acceptable. What is going on at Boeing, seems to be way beyond acceptable!

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Have you actually looked at data or are you just going by feel based on how many news articles you see?

          • ripcord@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            That second one.

            The knee-jerkiness and low effort “feels” comments on Lemmy sometimes is worse than it ever was on Reddit. It’s really exhausting.

            Ironically I find that the same people that complain about clickbait headlines are some of the worst when it comes to falling for rage-bait, for outrage addiction, not bothering to read articles, comment almost entirely off of “feels”, etc.

        • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          What is going on at Boeing, seems to be way beyond acceptable!

          This specific plane was built in 2001, and its engines were made by Pratt & Whitney. Boeing doesn’t build the engines, 747 engines came from Pratt & Whitney, GE, or Rolls Royce depending on the preference of the original buyer.

          Air incidents happen all the time (though fatalities are rare). You hear about the Boeing ones because Boeing is in the news (for very good reason, with regard to the 737 MAX and to a lesser extent the 787). But Boeing wasn’t responsible for this incident.

          If anything, Boeing’s design of the 747 proved itself yet again. That plane successfully climbed and maintained a holding pattern for 90 minutes after an engine failure during takeoff.

          Don’t get me wrong, modern Boeing needs to be overhauled. But older Boeing planes are still remarkably safe. (As are the current ones, the 787 has never suffered a fatality or a hull loss. But they’re playing a dangerous game with safety at the expense of profit lately.)

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      That’s because it’s not a company that makes planes. It’s a company that maximizes stock value and sometimes makes planes, shoddily, when forced to in order to keep the stock value up.