(balmes)
While it wasn’t so bad as say, an entire engine falling on a house a la Donnie Darko, a Toronto neighborhood was sprinkled with falling parts from an Air Canada Boeing 777 on Monday. Cars were hit but no passengers or people on the ground were harmed by the reportedly hot chunks of blackened metal raining from the sky.
The Toronto Star says the flight was carrying 318 passengers to Narita, Japan, when one of the two engines shut down. The plane then made an emergency landing at Pearson International Airport about an hour and a half after takeoff.
The gut-wrenching feeling of hearing silence from an engine 15 minutes into the flight warned one passenger that something was wrong.
“That’s when I grabbed my chair. ‘Oh, crap am I going to fall?” he told the paper.
Air Canada says it’s unsure why the engine died.
“Aircrafts are designed to fly with one engine and our pilots are trained to fly in such occurrences,” said Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson from Air Canada.
Residents on the ground called the police, reporting that pieces of metal coming from the sky had damaged their cars, but cops say no one was hurt.
A police constable said there were ambulances on the scene just in case people couldn’t handle the metal rain.
“People could be hyperventilating or have a heart attack. We have ambulances there just in case,” she said. “I’d be freaking out if it were me.”
Air Canada plane makes emergency landing at Pearson amid reports of falling debris [Toronto Star]
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Wheres the rabbit?
What is the best plane crash scene filmed for a movie or TV show?
I had this thought watching The Grey the other day, thinking how my favorite is from LOST.
Fight Club and Castaway come to mind for me
It would be tough to even compare any filmed plane crash to LOST. That was a stellar scene.
I agree…but then again, I think LOST was one of the greatest shows ever, so I may be biased.
Well, a record was set with Die Hard 2 for the highest number of casualties shown per minute…
Fearless
It could be a bird strike and not a maintenance issue …. but Air Canada recently shut down it’s own repair operations and outsourced to non-union locations in part to the the US but largely to San Salvador,
I can see these parts selling on eBay as “space debris”,
if you can word it just right (wink, wink).
At least it wasn’t a giant block of yellow ice
I’m pretty sure that parts falling out of an engine will make it die.
Wonderful. This calls for another fee added to the ticket price. We’ll call it the “unscheduled engine departure fee” or some such nonsense.
Best comment of the day award!
The passenger thinking that she was going to fall has seen one too many Wile E Coyote cartoons.
but he is a super genius, at least that’s what his self proclaimed name tag says
Flying Air Canada to Japan? That’s like taking the bus to the prom… Splurge and go JAL or Korean Air. Which airline doesn’t serve in-flight meal for a 5 hour+ flight from YVR to JFK? Air Canada.
I believe Air Canada offers the only non-stop Toronto>Narita.
They do (have the only direct flight), and having taken this same flight (AC001 if you’re wondering) just a few months ago, I strongly disagree.
AC001 and AC002 (the return flight) are Air Canada’s most prestigious route. They got the best and newest airplanes in the fleet, and get the most generous policies. Canada to US flight? Zero checked bags, one personal, one carryon. Canada to Japan flight? Two checked bags, one personal, one carryon.
AC001 also includes three hot meals (two point five, really, since the middle one is hot cup noodle and a sandwich), snacks at various points, frequent drink service, and constant water service (seriously, they’re constantly walking up and down the aisles holding big water bottles in case anybody wants it).
Overall, I was very impressed and pleased with the quality of the flight, the service, and the food. Might JAL have been a better quality of service? Maybe, but that requires a slower route (transfer in Vancouver) and costs more than twice as much. No thanks!
I was unaware that Air Canada offered the only direct flight out of TO. I stand corrected. That’s kind of sad but I guess it makes economic sense.
Air Canada–They definitely know what to do when the engines go out…………..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_glider
This was largely the airline’s fault, but was exacerbated by the switch from Imperial to Metric, which was still fresh in 1983.
Really, the reason for the safe landing was a great pilot; attempts to reproduce the landing in simulators produced constant crashes. The landing was so well done that they did some temporary repairs and *flew* it to the maintenance depot two days later where they refurbished it. The aircraft was finally retired in 2008.
I would have selected Bombur instead of Gimli – probably a softer landing…
My first thought was of the scene in Breaking Bad