# United Flight 328 DEN-HNL 777 Feb 20, 2021 UEF ✈



## Devil's Advocate (Feb 20, 2021)

An uncontained engine failure on United Flight 328 left debris and dramatic images in its wake.

“A Boeing 777-200 operated by United Airlines returned to Denver International Airport and landed safety Saturday after experiencing a right-engine failure shortly after takeoff,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA is aware of reports of debris in the vicinity of the airplane’s flight path. The passengers deplaned on Runway 26-Right and were bused to the terminal.” – FAA




























Dramatic video of United Airlines 777 engine fire - Airline Ratings


A passenger has captured a dramatic video of a United Airlines Boeing 777 engine fire after it suffered a major failure. The entire cowling structure has separated from the engine and parts have been ingested into the engine causing the failure and fire. READ: Qatar Airways world’s favorite...




www.airlineratings.com













Metal from plane falls from sky in Colorado; aircraft lands safely in Denver


Large pieces of metal fell from the sky in a suburban Denver city Saturday afternoon after a United Airlines plane reported engine trouble.




www.kiro7.com


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## SarahZ (Feb 20, 2021)

Thank goodness no one was hurt. Hopefully, the homes that were damaged weren't damaged TOO badly.


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## Sauve850 (Feb 20, 2021)

Yikes! No injuries reported so far.


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## Cal (Feb 20, 2021)

Oh my! Poor 777... 

It would be cool to see that in your yard though, as long as no damage was caused


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## Bob Dylan (Feb 20, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> An uncontained engine failure on United Flight 328 left debris and dramatic images in its wake.
> 
> “A Boeing 777-200 operated by United Airlines returned to Denver International Airport and landed safety Saturday after experiencing a right-engine failure shortly after takeoff,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA is aware of reports of debris in the vicinity of the airplane’s flight path. The passengers deplaned on Runway 26-Right and were bused to the terminal.” – FAA
> 
> ...



Wow, it happens rarely but when it does it can be really hazardous.


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## Blackwolf (Feb 21, 2021)

Yup, that's pretty much the definition of what NOT to see outside your window.


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## Cal (Feb 21, 2021)

Blackwolf said:


> Yup, that's pretty much the definition of what NOT to see outside your window.


Yep! I'd be terrified


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## railiner (Feb 21, 2021)

Just read that story...lucky thing no one was hurt in the air and on the ground...
I noticed one minor error in the tv story, they described Broomfield as being East of the airport. It is actually west...


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## jis (Feb 21, 2021)

railiner said:


> Just read that story...lucky thing no one was hurt in the air and on the ground...
> I noticed one minor error in the tv story, they described Broomfield as being East of the airport. It is actually west...


Yeah, east of the airport it is mostly Corn and Wheat field, not Broomfield. 

This is one of the very early 777s, as early as within the first 10 off the production line as I recall. United was a launch customer of the 777. I have flown in that aircraft many moons ago soon after it was inducted into service, on a UA 906 LHR-EWR flight as I seem to recall. This would be back in the '90s. UA 906/907 was my usual flight from/to London, which I traveled to quite often on work back then.

The engine that blew up is a Pratt and Whitney engine.


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## railiner (Feb 21, 2021)

It would be very interesting to know what they determine the cause was...hope for United's sake, it was not a maintenance issue...
Best cause would be something like a bird strike, I suppose...


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## jis (Feb 21, 2021)

An early SWAG would be that it was an uncontained fan component failure. Climb out is the time when all of that is under greatest stress too. The question then would be why it turned out to be so very uncontained.


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## jiml (Feb 21, 2021)

I liked how the passenger kept on videoing so calmly. Very fortunate the piece of engine housing landed on that person's porch, rather than their roof.


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## jis (Feb 21, 2021)

jiml said:


> I liked how the passenger kept on videoing so calmly. Very fortunate the piece of engine housing landed on that person's porch, rather than their roof.


So far there are five houses that are known to have sustained damage to their roof (holes in them) due to debris landing on them, none of them large enough to cause any structural damage fortunately.


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## AmtrakBlue (Feb 21, 2021)

jiml said:


> I liked how the passenger kept on videoing so calmly. Very fortunate the piece of engine housing landed on that person's porch, rather than their roof.


That would probably be me...


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## Dakota 400 (Feb 21, 2021)

jis said:


> An early SWAG would be that it was an uncontained fan component failure. Climb out is the time when all of that is under greatest stress too. The question then would be why it turned out to be so very uncontained.



There were two aviation experts on CCN and NBC last evening that speculated that was the cause and, if so, why it was not contained. One of the gentlemen suggested a bird strike could also be a culprit. 

Whoever owns property #1372 is a fortunate person to have that front part of the engine land where it did.


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## TrackWalker (Feb 21, 2021)

Which do you prefer?

Airline CHI-SEA, "We will be cruising at an altitude of 36,000 feet at 510 MPH.

Amtrak CHI-SEA, "We will be cruising at an altitude of 10 feet at 79 MPH.


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## railiner (Feb 21, 2021)

TrackWalker said:


> Amtrak CHI-SEA, "We will be cruising at an altitude of 10 feet at 79 MPH.


An altitude of 10 feet? How are you going to do that, with a new "hovercraft" train?


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## MARC Rider (Feb 21, 2021)

railiner said:


> An altitude of 10 feet? How are you going to do that, with a new "hovercraft" train?


If they kept the Empire Builder to an altitude of 10 feet, it would be running in a subway tunnel for nearly the whole distance, plus, they'd have to build a new underground station, well below the water table, in Chicago.


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## jiml (Feb 22, 2021)

Many 777's with P&W engines have been grounded. Those with Rolls-Royce are still flying.


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## B757Guy (Feb 22, 2021)

All of our PW 777's are grounded at the moment. The mishap aircraft in question, I personally had flown both as CA and FO several times. Kudo's to the crew for their professionalism, and so happy no one was injured.


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## railiner (Feb 22, 2021)

NBC's report...








Boeing suspends 777s after engine failure on United flight


The company suspended operations for the planes powered by a Pratt & Whitney 4000 model engine.




www.nbcnews.com


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## railiner (Feb 22, 2021)

jiml said:


> Many 777's with P&W engines have been grounded. Those with Rolls-Royce are still flying.


Those with GE engines are also still flying...AA uses those...


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

jiml said:


> Many 777's with P&W engines have been grounded. Those with Rolls-Royce are still flying.


GE 90s are still flying too. That is what the ex-Con 777-200ERs at UA are IIRC.


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## jiml (Feb 22, 2021)

railiner said:


> Those with GE engines are also still flying...AA uses those...


Yes, I'd been looking for confirmation of that. The first article I read only referred to the RR models, and as you know some G.E. engines (A-380 for example) are co-produced with Pratt & Whitney, so I didn't want to assume.


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

From what was mentioned on the news, it appears the greatest majority of 777 are not using this engine. Many of the earlier 777 are indeed RR Trent or GE powered, later on it became all GE engines. I believe that AA has a bunch of the 200 variants that are RR. Longer range and newer are all GE.


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## jiml (Feb 22, 2021)

Fortunately a lot of the affected aircraft appear to be stored already.


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

I guess UA will temporarily deploy their GE powered 77Es on the routes where domestic 777As were being used. The intercontinental routes for the time being will continue with 77Ws. So a bunch of domestic passengers might get to enjoy Polaris BC seats.

Ironically, reduced traffic due to COVID will help a lot in tiding over this outage.


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

Not sure what level of "storage" they are in, but they have a bunch of 767-400 parked as well as 300s


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## Cal (Feb 22, 2021)

PVD said:


> From what was mentioned on the news, it appears the greatest majority of 777 are not using this engine. Many of the earlier 777 are indeed RR Trent or GE powered, later on it became all GE engines. I believe that AA has a bunch of the 200 variants that are RR. Longer range and newer are all GE.


Mhm, most are using the GE90, which are my favorite aviation engine!


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

And a derivative the GE9X is the engine for the next family of 777


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 22, 2021)

Some aviation fans have disputed the uncontained nature of the failure, and even claimed that grounding the subfleet was an overreaction, but in my view the photo above puts that debate to rest. Even if the FAA & UA refused to act foreign regulators and airlines were moving to ground P&W aircraft. The real question is why increased inspections are still failing to find flaws before they result in a serious problem.



jis said:


> I guess UA will temporarily deploy their GE powered 77Es on the routes where domestic 777As were being used. The intercontinental routes for the time being will continue with 77Ws. So a bunch of domestic passengers might get to enjoy Polaris BC seats.


Utilization and demand remain relatively low, so in the short term I think it's more likely that we see increased frequencies over stored fleet activation. Demand may even dip a bit since this story received more than the usual amount of press due to an abundance of striking visual content.


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

I don't believe any GE 777 are in storage at UA That's why I mentioned other types.


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

PVD said:


> I don't believe any GE 777 are in storage at UA That's why I mentioned other types.


77Ws are mostly in use, there are some GE 77Es that are in storage the last time I looked.


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

I didn't see any, but some of these lists are off a bit... A 747 freighter with P&W blew an engine a few days ago in Europe, and it shows as stored.


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

PVD said:


> I didn't see any, but some of these lists are off a bit... A 747 freighter with P&W blew an engine a few days ago in Europe, and it shows as stored.


Well they are not in deep storage, but they are not in current use on a regular basis either. They maybe being rotated in and out to keep them current, but a number are parked in various places. They don't have enough operating flights to need most of the GE 77Es at present.


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## TrackWalker (Feb 22, 2021)

jis said:


> Well they are not in deep storage, but they are not in current use on a regular basis either. They maybe being rotated in and out to keep them current, ...



I don't want to hijack this threat but is Amtrak rotating it's passenger cars to keep them current now with cutbacks?


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

TrackWalker said:


> I don't want to hijack this threat but is Amtrak rotating it's passenger cars to keep them current now with cutbacks?


I have no idea since I don't have access to that information. 

However, keeping a plane current is probably a more pressing need if one expects to want to put them back into service in short order, since deep storing a plane is a long and involved process and a deep stored plane takes a long time to reactivate. Passenger cars are probably much easier to store and reactivate from storage. Planes are just a bit more complicated technical beasts than passenger cars


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

Here's some more concrete details from airliners.net...

UA had only 13 of the 777As flying. 6 are short term parked. Additionally 10 772ERs are short term parked as are somewhere between a half a dozen and a dozen 788s.

Currently the grounded 772As are being covered by a combination of 773, 789, 788, 753 and 738 depending on individual segment loads.


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

That makes sense, there certainly is a difference between parked and stored...


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## Cal (Feb 22, 2021)

jis said:


> Currently the grounded 772As are being covered by a combination of 773, 789, 788, 753 and 738 depending on individual segment loads.


Those getting on a 787 are really lucky... 

And almost any avgeek would rather be on a 753 as well.


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## jis (Feb 22, 2021)

Cal said:


> Those getting on a 787 are really lucky...
> 
> And almost any avgeek would rather be on a 753 as well.


Those 773s (actually 77Ws) are Polaris too. They are very impressive planes. I fly by them at least a couple of times a year in non-pandemic years to India and back. I guess I am missing that trip only this year, if things proceed as they are.


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## Dakota 400 (Feb 22, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Some aviation fans have disputed the uncontained nature of the failure, and even claimed that grounding the subfleet was an overreaction, but in my view the photo above puts that debate to rest



It was an uncontained engine failure on United 262 that caused that accident. Interesting that flight originated in Denver just as United 328 did.


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## PVD (Feb 22, 2021)

Be interesting to see the 764 come back. The 16 parked at Roswell are supposed to be c39 (polaris) 203y with [email protected] and 31 for regular


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## Cal (Feb 22, 2021)

jis said:


> Those 773s (actually 77Ws) are Polaris too. They are very impressive planes. I fly by them at least a couple of times a year in non-pandemic years to India and back. I guess I am missing that trip only this year, if things proceed as they are.


YEs they are! The 777-300 is a beauty.


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## TomLang (Feb 23, 2021)

Are the same engines used in other airframes? More groundings and inspections would be in order.


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## jis (Feb 23, 2021)

Here is a really nice blow by blow accounting of how the incident unfolded including aircraft position, ATC, what the pilots were doing and associated info presented very nicely by someone who is a pilot himself ....


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 23, 2021)

Here is an update on current state of the NTSB investigation.









Investigators release preliminary findings on the United Airlines flight engine failure. Here's what we know | CNN


The investigation into the engine failure of a Boeing 777 could take more than a year, officials said, but already the picture is becoming clearer about what happened to the United Airlines flight on Saturday.




www.cnn.com





Here is a look at related events and the blade inspection process.









United 777-200 UPDATE: FAA To Ground Affected Jets! - Mentour Pilot


The FAA will issue an Airworthiness Directive to ground older United Boeing 777 aircraft with a specific Pratt & Whitney engine, for checks.




mentourpilot.com







Cal said:


> Those getting on a 787 are really lucky...And almost any avgeek would rather be on a 753 as well.


Why?


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## gswager (Feb 23, 2021)

It stated that the 777 was losing altitude after engine failure. Question is the plane can maintain its' altitude with one engine running, esp of you're over the vast expanse of ocean?


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 23, 2021)

gswager said:


> It stated that the 777 was losing altitude after engine failure. Question is the plane can maintain its' altitude with one engine running, esp of you're over the vast expanse of ocean?


Maintaining lift with an engine loss is a requirement of commercial certification. In the case of twin engine jets this means they must be able to maintain sufficient lift with a single engine in operation. Loss of altitude could be due to a number of reasons. Watch the video in *post #46* to see what was likely going on inside the aircraft at that time.


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## jis (Feb 23, 2021)

gswager said:


> It stated that the 777 was losing altitude after engine failure. Question is the plane can maintain its' altitude with one engine running, esp of you're over the vast expanse of ocean?


What is the "It" that stated?

Denver Departure assigned it an altitude of 9,000' after the MAYDAY at a higher altitude. So the plane descended to that altitude. That had nothing to do with the loss of an engine.

Then later after the checklists were done and finally Runway 26 was settled on for landing it was assigned 7,000' to ILS intercept AFAIR. It was pretty much a normal single engine flight after the damaged engine was secured.

Remember, a 777 can climb from the runway out on a single engine.


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## jis (Feb 23, 2021)

TomLang said:


> Are the same engines used in other airframes? More groundings and inspections would be in order.


Just FI...


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## Cal (Feb 23, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Why?



787s all have IFE's I believe.
787s are quieter. 
787s have more modernized cabins. 


As for the 757s, they are slowly disappearing from the skies and are a great old plane. Any avgeek would want to ride on them.


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## Dakota 400 (Feb 23, 2021)

jis said:


> Here is a really nice blow by blow accounting of how the incident unfolded including aircraft position, ATC, what the pilots were doing and associated info presented very nicely by someone who is a pilot himself ....




A fascinating video and a very re-assuring one for me as one who flies from time to time.


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## gswager (Feb 23, 2021)

"It" was the news about the conversation between the pilot and the air controller and the events.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 23, 2021)

Cal said:


> 787s all have IFE's I believe.
> 787s are quieter.
> 787s have more modernized cabins.
> As for the 757s, they are slowly disappearing from the skies and are a great old plane. Any avgeek would want to ride on them.


Every 777 I've flown had IFE, it may have been a tiny 4:3 screen with distorted composite video from a videocassette with no playback controls, but there was always something. I can't argue about the noise levels though. Early 777's are surprisingly loud and by the time the flight is over my ears are ringing. Newer 777's don't seem to have this problem anymore. I like _most_ of the 787 experience but the perpetual twilight of glowing electronic window shades is rather annoying to me. I never got into the 757 the way other fans did but if that's your thing then more power to you.


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## Cal (Feb 23, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Every 777 I've flown had IFE, it may have been a tiny 4:3 screen with distorted composite video from a videocassette with no playback controls, but there was always something. I can't argue about the noise levels though. Early 777's are surprisingly loud and by the time the flight is over my ears are ringing. Newer 777's don't seem to have this problem anymore. I like _most_ of the 787 experience but the perpetual twilight of glowing electronic window shades is rather annoying to me. I never got into the 757 the way other fans did but if that's your thing then more power to you.


I flew on a 777-200 a few months back. No IFE for the four hour flight from Chicago to SFO. So...


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 24, 2021)

Cal said:


> I flew on a 777-200 a few months back. No IFE for the four hour flight from Chicago to SFO. So...


According to my memory 772's were delivered with IFE back in the 1990's. 

This is what they looked like back then...




I guess United has since replaced the screens with blanks or upholstered over them.


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## Cal (Feb 24, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> I guess United has since replaced the screens with blanks or upholstered over them.


Yep. Because I remember being disappointed and having to watch concerts on my phone for the long flight. Didn't even have a window seat for takeoff/landing videos


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## jis (Feb 24, 2021)

gswager said:


> "It" was the news about the conversation between the pilot and the air controller and the events.


I would not depend too much on news reports about such things. Half the time the reporting is incorrect in some way or the other.


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## saxman (Feb 24, 2021)

gswager said:


> "It" was the news about the conversation between the pilot and the air controller and the events.



The media usually screws details up, so I wouldn't worry about that part. In this incident, they were on climb out and a single engine would have no problem continuing the climb. They began their decent to get ready to land again back in Denver. 

At normal cruising altitudes, such as in the 30 to 40,000 feet range, loosing an engine would require a decent as a single engine would not be able to maintain that high. So it would "drift" down to about the 20 to 25,000 foot range. It's planned for, and can even be done over the ocean for hours until they can reach their ETOPS alternate.


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## Bob Dylan (Feb 24, 2021)

saxman said:


> The media usually screws details up, so I wouldn't worry about that part. In this incident, they were on climb out and a single engine would have no problem continuing the climb. They began their decent to get ready to land again back in Denver.
> 
> At normal cruising altitudes, such as in the 30 to 40,000 feet range, loosing an engine would require a decent as a single engine would not be able to maintain that high. So it would "drift" down to about the 20 to 25,000 foot range. It's planned for, and can even be done over the ocean for hours until they can reach their ETOPS alternate.


 Book it since this is from one of our One of our Airline Pilot Members !


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