Shut Downs That Are Not Engine Failures
Most in-flight shutdowns are harmless and likely to go unnoticed by passengers. For example, it may be prudent for the flight crew to shut down an engine and perform a precautionary landing in the event of a low oil pressure or high oil temperature warning in the cockpit. However, passengers may become quite alarmed by other engine events such as a compressor surge — a malfunction that is typified by loud bangs and even flames from the engine’s inlet and tailpipe. A compressor surge is a disruption of the airflow through a gas turbine engine that can be caused by engine deterioration, a crosswind over the engine’s inlet, ingestion of foreign material, or an internal component failure such as a broken blade. While this situation can be alarming, the condition is momentary and not dangerous.
Other events such as a fuel control fault can result in excess fuel in the engine’s combustor. This additional fuel can result in flames extending from the engine’s exhaust pipe. As alarming as this would appear, at no time is the engine itself actually on fire.
Also, the failure of certain components in the engine may result in a release of oil into bleed air that can cause an odor or oily mist in the cabin. This known as a fume event. The dangers of fume events are the subject of debate in both aviation and medicine.
Read more about this topic: Turbine Engine Failure
Famous quotes containing the words shut, downs, engine and/or failures:
“Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last year’s weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate,—and meantime it is only puss and her tail.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Industrial man—a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel revolving with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“If tragedy elicits our compassion, comedy appeals to our self-interest. The former confronts life’s failures with noble fortitude, the latter seeks to circumvent them with shrewd nonchalance. The one leaves us momentarily in a mood of resignation, the other in a condition of euphoria.”
—Harry Levin (b. 1912)