ThomsonFly 757 bird strike & flames captured on video
headintheclouds46Cited 5× on HN, 2015–2019
news · general · evergreen · 2015–2019 on HN
Amateur footage of a Thomsonfly 757 ingesting a bird on takeoff from Manchester, with a flaming engine and a safe return, with 233 people aboard.
HN links it as a vivid example of a bird strike taking out an engine, and praises the calm crew and ATC response.
Up next
11 mo on HNChildren Of The Magenta Line
Mossie Fly
11 HN recommender · 2021–2026
6 mo on HNThe Economics of Airline Class
Wendover Productions
6 HN recommender · 2017–2025
6 mo on HNDavid Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122
Lex Fridman
8 HN recommender · 2020–2022
6 mo on HNThe Fastest Way to Board a Plane Feels Like the Slowest
CGP Grey
9 HN recommender · 2020–2023
6 mo on HNZipline - How Rwanda Built A Drone Delivery Service
Real Engineering
9 HN recommender · 2019–2023
5 mo on HNPulling Power from the Sky: The Story of Makani [Feature Film]
X, The Moonshot Factory
6 HN recommender · 2020–2025
5 mo on HNJoe Rogan Experience #1361 - Cmdr. David Fravor & Jeremy Corbell
PowerfulJRE
5 HN recommender · 2019–2023
5 mo on HNBig Plane vs Little Plane (The Economics of Long-Haul Flights)
Wendover Productions
8 HN recommender · 2017–2023
5 mo on HNWhy You Should Put YOUR MASK On First (My Brain Without Oxygen) - Smarter Every Day 157
SmarterEveryDay
5 HN recommender · 2016–2025
5 mo on HNThe Boeing 787: Broken Dreams l Al Jazeera Investigations
Al Jazeera English
6 HN recommender · 2017–2024
4 mo on HNA NEW Trace! The FULL MH370 Story, so Far..
Mentour Pilot
5 HN recommender · 2024–2025
4 mo on HNHow to crash an airplane – Nickolas Means | The Lead Developer UK 2016
LeadDev
4 HN recommender · 2019–2024
5 comments from Hacker News
With you… like this Thomson plane that had a failure due to bird ingestion during take off at Manchester - ▶ this video
> Takeoff is a very critical phase of flight. Instantaneous engine failure plus partial control surface loss and fuel fires could easily overwhelm a pilot Continued takeoff after failure of a single engine is certification requirement for the aircraft, and is trained frequently by pilots. See the Thompson 757 A330 bird ingestion, engine failure, and successful landing in 2007: ▶ this video However, sometimes the outcome is less benign, as in the TransAsia 235 crash where apparently pilots shut down the wrong (working) engine: link link Failure of more than one engine is always going to be, well, problematic (the Miracle on the Hudson notwithstanding). And, as you point out, uncontained engine failure (while rare) can screw all sorts of things up. So, while I disagree somewhat with "could easily overwhelm a pilot" and "nearly bought down the plane" regarding Qantas 32, all in all I'm afraid you're right...
This video [0] of a bird strike on a 757 always makes my heart beat faster. For the first time, I just counted the timing. Bird strike is at ~10 seconds. Pilot waits until ~20 seconds to call "Mayday". Only at ~32 seconds does he shut down the damaged engine. If the Taipei pilot had taken the same time to get his bearings before acting, everyone might have survived. In terms of the value of training, I love how cooly the air traffic controller responds to the Mayday. [0] ▶ this video
Similar recording of the BA crash at Heathrow. I am always impressed how professional they do things: link Another one of an engine failure at Manchester - the response of the ATC within 1 second of the mayday call is plain amazing: ▶ this video
Yet sometimes a single bird will take out an engine: ▶ this video Modern engines are designed to contain the damage, and multi-engine jets are designed to be able to maintain control, climb to a safe altitude, and return to the airport with an engine out, so flying a small drone into an engine probably won't cause a major disaster, but it will cause a lot of disruption as the plane declares an emergency and returns to the airport, and cost a lot of money to repair or replace the engine. One of the suggested videos for that one was interesting. It's a video from a forward facing camera in an F-16 as it gets hit by a bird, which shuts down the engine. The pilot tries for a while to restart, fails, ejects, and the plane crashes: link