I received the following from my father-in-law, who is a corporate pilot. Enjoy!David"The attached pictures prove the superior dispatchability of the Boeing 747.An Asian airline operator came into FRA (Frankfurt, Germany) for an unscheduled refuelling stop. The reason became soon apparent to the ground crew: The fan on the number 3 engine didn't look so good.This had apparently been no problem for the tough guys back in Asia: they took some sturdy straps and wrapped them around both the fanblades and the structures behind (note the straps are seatbelts, how resourceful!), thus stopping any unwanted windmilling (engine spinning by itself due to airflow passing thru during flight) and associated uncomfortable vibration caused by the suboptimal fan. Off they went into the wild blue yonder with another revenue-making flight on only three engines! When they got a bit low on fuel, they just set it down at the closest airport for a quick refill.That's when the problem started: Those Germans are kinda picky about this stuff, and they grounded the aircraft. The airline operator had to send a chunk of money to get the first engine replaced (took about10 days), and the repair contractor had decided to do some impromptuinspection work on the other engines, none of which looked all that great either. The result: a total of 3 engines were finally changed on this plane before it was allowed to fly again."

Wow! :( I think I've flown on her :-lol ;)

:-eek :-eek ! That is insane! Remind me never to fly with that asian airline :-outta .Dell Dimension 8100Pentium 4 1.3GHz256MB PC800 ECC RDRAM40GB ATA100 HDATI Radeon DDR 32MBSoundBlaster Live!

That's nothing,I heard they threw three passengers off that flight for not wearing seat belts.. :-lol :-lol :-lolHonestly, what Idiot sitting on that side of the airplane, in front of the wings would even fly knowing this was ocuuring.Steward heard to say:"It's ok sir, we do that to prevent turbulance stress on the engine. Our mechanics on the ground say we'll be fine." :-lolRegards,Joe :-wavehttp://home.attbi.com/~jranos/mysig.jpg http://avsim.com/hangar/air/bfu/logo70.gif

What happened to those blades though? What would damage them like that?

Unbelievable...You've got to tell us the name of that company...that's really spooky stuff...Twister

Somebody HAS to do this plane in gMax. :)

Judging by some of the colors I'm seeing, it looks like either ANA or China Airlines!Sincerely,Dennis D. Mullert

Thats why I have my rule of thumb that says; I refuse to fly on any commercial, hell, any airline where the maintenance people are likely to ride a Donkey home from work! :-boom

Pls don't count Malaysia Airlines in with that, they are one of the best I've ever flown on, and I've been on a lot!Recently flew on a their 777 service from AMS to KUL and a 7474 KUL to SYD. They are also KLM's far east partner and in fact better than KLM, more cabin crew per pax and seat back TV's throughout. unlike KLM who still use overhead TV screens in economy on long haul.RegardsTim

I find this a little hard to believe - a revenue flight departing with an engine out....hmmm...I can't see any ATP agreeing to fly the plane in that condition. I am not a pilot, just using common sense.Rob.

The story I heard was that it was a freighter - no passengers.

>What happened to those blades though? What would damage >them like that? My guess would be bird ingestion. I doubt that the airplane was on a revenue flight -- it was probably being ferried home for repairs. To be grounded like it was, the airplane must have had some serious airworthiness issues apart from the damaged engine fan.

>Pls don't count Malaysia Airlines in with that, they are one >of the best I've ever flown on, and I've been on a lot! >>Recently flew on a their 777 service from AMS to KUL and a >7474 KUL to SYD. They are also KLM's far east partner and in >fact better than KLM, more cabin crew per pax and seat back >TV's throughout. unlike KLM who still use overhead TV >screens in economy on long haul. >>Regards >TimLast year I flew on Malaysia Airlines' B772 all the way from Newark to Sydney. Let me tell you, they have the best inflight service in economy class I've ever seen on any other airline! And yeah did I mention how quiet and smooth B777 is ? I am goin back to New Jersey later this year and Malaysian is on top of my list so far.cheers,tim

Although it does look like something externally has hit the engine bird ingestion isn't required to cause that amount of damage, a simple fan blade failure on the N1 fan can do that sort of damage, not to mention any other blade failing in the compressor compartments will cause the turbine to become unbalanced and obliterate itself.Take for instance this:http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/tech-rep/8-01/index.cfm