If you loose an engine at take off, how do you proceed?

Question

Now here is the situation: one engine of your 757 FALLS off, as you rotate, what is the next move, I know declare emergency, but do you then immed. land or burn off fuel? This, of course extremely rare, but it has occured in the past . Also what would be the "bug" speed for a landing in this situation with almost full fuel load and crew etc.

Answer 1

An American Airlines DC-10 (flight 191 departing from Chicago O'Hare on May 25th, 1979) had an engine separate from the wing during takeoff. The engine pylon sheared from stress caused by an improper maintenance procedure several weeks prior to the accident. The pylon and engine first separated aft and rotated over the top of the wing and broke free, tearing the slat hydraulic lines causing the left side slats to retract. This caused an imbalance of stall speed between the left wing and the right wing. The pilots had no knowledge the engine came off, only that power was lost from the left engine. With less total thrust, the angle and rate is reduced, so in the event it should happen in reduced visibility, the pilots would not be able to see and avoid possible obstacles in the departure path, so the best angle of climb speed with one engine inoperative (V2) is used to a safe altitude. For the Boeing 757, that speed depends on weight and flap setting. Leading edge slats are used for takeoff and lowers the stall speed. Since it's possible to takeoff in weather not suitable for landing, a takeoff alternate airport would be used in that senario. If the weather and airport are suitable for landing, a return to the airport of takeoff might be best. If the controllers were to tell the pilots that they actually lost the engine and not just thrust, then the pilots would want to get the airplane back on the ground as soon as possible even if it meant landing overweight. The Boeing 757 has no capability to dump fuel. With an emergency declared, the pilots would choose the longest runway in the local area. As far as control is concerned, with assymetrical lift caused by slat retraction on one side, at least 10 knots would have to be added to V2 to keep the affected wing from stalling. The pilot of the DC-10 had control of the aircraft, but one engine inoperative procedure was to fly at V2. As he slowed toward V2 and using full rudder deflection, the left wing began to roll left. Had he increased the speed again, the left wing would have come out of the stall, and the disaster might have been avoided. Landing over-weight is preferable to taking a chance the aircraft might breakup in-flight.

Answer 2

You also have to factor in air temperature and field altitude. You would continue your take-off, declare an emergency then return to the field and land. Chances are that if your engine has fallen off you are now spewing out the fuel that would be supplied to the missing engine. Therefore, landing immediately would be your only option. I don't know what the 'bug' speed would be as there are a lot of variables that would affect the speed. As long as the aircraft was maintaining it's aerodynamics the pilots would land the plane at a normal speed.

The 757 is certified to fly on one engine and is designed to be able to continue a takeoff, cruise and landing. However, losing an engine is an emergency and would be handled as one.

Answer 3

All commercial passenger carrying aircraft must be certified to be able to continue takeoff on the remaining engine(s) after rotation. Since it would then have only one engine remaining they would continue takeoff, declare emergency and go around and land. The various models require 5500 to 7800 feet to take off. If the particular model had more runway left than used,they may set it down and stop on the runway.
Approach speeds are 132 to 137 knots, normally. Some speed is always added to this depending on the emergency situations.

Answer 4

All airplanes must be able to end the take off in safety or arrest their run on the runway if an engine failure occurs.
So for every model and depending on the payload you can determine the balanced field length, that is the minimum distance you need to guarantee this conditions, in fact it's determined by the intersection of the field length needed to end the take off without one engine and the runway length needed to stop, in function of the speed at the moment of the failure....
so there is a speed that need the same field Length to take off and to stop, it's called V1, if the engine failure occurs before V1 you will stop, if after you will continue the take off.
Of course bi-motors are more affected by a engine failure compared to tri-motors or four-engined because they loose a smaller fraction of their thrust, 50% compared to 33% and 25%.

Answer 5

One of the numbers you need to calculate as part of your pre-flight operations is the proper single engine speed, based on the aircraft weight and the prevailing pressure and temperature. The FIRST thing you do is to get to that speed, verify that you can keep it, and that nothing else is going to pot that must be immediately dealt with. Then you can call ATC, declare an emergency, and deal with the problem in a somewhat more relaxed manner.

Answer 6

Well, its hard saying not knowing. Cut the fuel/ hydraulic/ electric to that engine. Climb at the optimum single engine climb (would be a blue arc if it wasn't a glass cockpit). Heres the interesting part; do you dump fuel to reach a landing weight, or do you continue on with one engine... Landing full, well, as slow as possible, I guess...

Answer 7

Yes, the build up of exhaust gases confused the o2 sensor setting the lean code. A loose gas cap would have set a vacuum leak code in the evaporative emissions system.

Answer 8

well all aircraft has the feature RTO on the Autobreak switch knob area switch it on to the RTO position and set the engine into idle and request taxi for maintenance from Airport Ground Controller. btw, i almost forgot since, i think you mean the pane has already took off and not rotate?? ROTATE means you're still on the runway trying to lift off the ground.

Answer 9

............... well all the air-crafts are tested and certified to fly and return back to the departure field ...... in case of an engine failure ....... on full load ... therefore it has first to climb up to a safe altitude of that field and then return back to land ASAP ..... even without dumping any fuel ............ it has to make it into overweight landing .........

Answer 10

assuming that the engine loss did not remove parts that made navigation impossible, there is enough thrust in even 2 engines to land a 757 without incident.