Jet Engine Fire Forces Landing, Evacuation

Chicago-Bound American Airlines MD-80 Lands Safely in St. Louis, No Reports Of Injuries

(AP)  Fire crews at Lambert Airport extinguish an engine fire that started after an American Airlines MD-80 took off today from St. Louis for Chicago.

No one was hurt, and all 137 passengers, two pilots, and three flight attendants left the plane safely after it turned back to Lambert and landed.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines says its flight 1400 took off from St. Louis at 1:03 p.m. headed to Chicago.

After takeoff, the plane had a left hand engine fire and returned to St. Louis, landing at 1:40 p.m.

Fire crews at Lambert met the plane and used fire-suppressing foam to put out the fire.

Everyone got out safely and walked into the terminal.

American Airlines says its maintenance will look at the aircraft and try to determine a cause for the fire.

[Krazcarl]

I can''t imagine looking out the window and seeing that!!

[trenticus-2009]

Okay, there was a fire in the engine and everyone got out. Now where are the slides? Was it not critical enough to "pop" the slides to evacuate or was this just an "incident" that did not require an immediate evac? Thank goodness that everyone is okay and no injuries were reported "yet". I see some "sue" happy person filing a suit for "post" psyco stress. Mark my words, there will be a suit filed... I think three will be the number since everythng supposedly happens in three''s. And for those who file suit will not be thanking the crew for getting them back on the ground and out of a burning plane. Can''t wait for this one to come to a head. Gosh, I feel like a fortune teller!!!

[apndrgn]

take off is the most stressful time on an engine. I wonder if there is an analogy in nature. Do older ducks get hernias when frightened into the air by cats? The passengers feel lucky. Think how lucky they will feel when the jumbo jet bus has a mere engine fire on takeoff rather than an unforseen computer glitch in flight.

[sevenveils]

Ha, Computer glitches in the cockpit have kept me grounded for more than an hour while tech support gives instructions on how to reboot the plane. Imagine that in the air. That is why Windows isn''t running anything in on a plane.

[nothappyatall]

"and all 137 passengers, two pilots, and three flight attendants left the plane safely "

They always do this, why do the news always feel the need to separate out and divide various classes?

Just say "all 137 people on board left the plane safely" we don''t CARE how many were crew members, baggage handlers or flight attendants!!

[flyinman-2009]

I was a passenger on this flight and I will give a perspective that the news and AA aren%u2019t giving you. Within 5 minutes of take-off there was an immediate deceleration; hence the left engine catching fire. The pilot came on and said we would return to the field in 5 minutes. We made 4 banking turns but it was apparent that we did not descend fast enough make a landing. Instead we flew the tower and the field, which added uncertainty to the event. About this time the plane began flying erratically. It became evident that we had lost hydraulics and power. The tension mounted because to make a landing after 4 more banking turns while descending without hydraulics complicates things. No power killed the phone intercom system so the Captain started yelling to the flight attendant some instructions. At this time an AA Pilot in seat 8D jumped up and ran to the cockpit to assist the crew. Witnesses in First Class saw a cockpit that was not illuminated and heard the %u201CLeft Engine Fire%u201D alarm repeatedly. We still had 4 banking turns to make while descending and the stress was unbearable. I can%u2019t confirm this but apparently we dropped fuel over some farmland in case of the worst kind of emergency landing sans landing gear. Was there trouble getting the mechanical release to work for the gear? I believe only the pilots know. What I do know is that the gear didn%u2019t drop until we were in line with the runway at the last possible minute.

[dsist]

Flyinman, what the hell are u talking about??? A stall has nothing to do with the operation of the engines. It is related to airspeed and angle of attack. An MD-80 can be flown on one engine. Also, an MD-80 crew consists of 2 pilots, not 3.

[Krazcarl]

dsist..Thanks another drunk trying to make it look like he was there the same kind of cretin that claimed to serve and never got out behind momas apron.

[tucano2]

CBS is NON-informative; the head line ought to specify the aircraft manufacturer and model number, not the airline carrier and flight number. How much does Boeing pay to keep out of bad news?

[tucano2]

Had to go to the "story" to find out this was a "MD-80" (that is to say a Douglas DC-9 stretch)- no big news

[mandyzfelix]

Dsist,

Flyinman was referring to the 2 pilots plus the pilot that happened to be a passenger on the plane who ran up to try and help. 2 + 1 = THREE pilots.

[dsist]

Flyinman''s posts contained copious amounts of B.S.. I only touched on the most obvious.

[getloud1]

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[Robjunk]

I was on the plane too. I''m surprised none of the reports mention the hydraulic problem. I''m also extremely surprised that none of them (nor the other passenger that posted on this thread) mentioned the fact that take-off was delayed 15 minutes for the replacement of a fuel valve in the left engine!
One of the pilots announced the delay shortly before take-off, saying first that they were having trouble with a fuel valve that was keeping them from starting the left engine, and that they were going to attempt to operate the valve manually. Then a few minutes later he announced that they had failed to operate it manually and were instead going to replace the valve, which ''should take about 15 minutes.''
I would rather that it take 30 minutes or that I have to board a different plane than have to nearly go down in flames due to a rush repair job on a critical component.
Hmmm.. Hurried replacement of a fuel valve and subsequent engine fire... Could there possibly be a connection there???
I hope there is a thorough investigation of it.

[Robjunk]

Forgot to mention...
Someone asked why they didn''t use slides.
After landing, they initially thought they contained the fire with water. At that point they believed it safe to tow the crippled plane (no hydraulics, not steerable) back to the terminal.

Then the fire crew thought they spotted more, and so they used foam on the engine. Then the smell of fuel became very apparent in the rear of the cabin, where I was seated. By then, they had already brought out a ''stair truck'' and buses, in case there was a need to unload the passengers. Once the fuel leak was noticed, the goal changed to getting the people OUT of the plane instead of getting the plane to the terminal, and since the equipment to offload the passengers was already at hand, there was no need for slides.

Someone also mentioned that it was probably scary ''seeing that'' out the window. In an MD-80, the engines are too far aft to see well from passenger windows, so I doubt any passengers saw the flames.

[Robjunk]

Me again. (comments are limited to 1500chars)
My only complaint in one of my previous posts had been the poor and wreckless way the fuel valve was replaced in order, I assume, to maintain the schedule. I have to say, though, the crew and staff did a great job -- the pilots especially.
I would like to add a complaint in this post. To add insult to injury, we were directed to a bank of ''red phones'' for contacting AA and getting new itineraries. Unfortunately the red phones had NO BUTTONS ON THEM, and the call center to which we were automatically connected (upon picking up the receiver) had touch-tone automated menus!!!

[Robjunk]

By the time I had gotten my cell phone to a point where I could play DTMF over its speaker (stop laughing!) I had already ''timed out'' in the menus twice, and was on my third try. This time it rolled me over directly to a representative. There were three phones available and all had the same issue (no buttons, no way to navigate the menus.)
It took about three minutes for it to time out a few times and finally get an operator. When I was done with my rebooking, I asked the operator if I could keep the line open for the next person instead of having to hang-up and force the next person to start the absurdity over, but she would not do it. It did manage to pry a general AA 800 number and wrote it down and passed it around amongst other passengers waiting in line so they could call it with their cell phones. I would have loved to stay on the line and escalate a *** session to a few supervisors'' supervisors'' supervisors, but I didn''t want to make my fellow passengers wait. I was on the phone with her for 4 minutes already. Imagine 137 people sharing 3 phones and taking 7 (4+3) minutes per call -- that''s roughly 5 hours worth of waiting.
I plan on pointing this out to AA tomorrow. I would have done so sooner, but thanks to them my weekend was already screwed up enough, and I didn''t feel like dealing with it.

[yo_marc]

dsisk wrote: "Flyinman, what the hell are u talking about??? A stall has nothing to do with the operation of the engines. It is related to airspeed and angle of attack."

What I understood him saying was that the stall danger was upon landing...

I wonder how hard that plane was to fly with just one engine and apparently lacking hydraulics. A friend of mine was multi-engine certified (private pilot), and I remember him telling me how hard it was to fly a pattern in a twin engine plane, with one engine shutdown (which is required to do during your certification). He said the plane wanted to constantly roll, so you''re fighting it with shaking/cramping muscles and two feet on one pedal for the rudder, etc.