Aviation: Two Engines Are Better

• Share

Airlines routinely lose baggage, and one airplane in flight last year even lost some of its skin. In the sky near Chicago's O'Hare International Airport last week, a Boeing 737 lost something just as important: one of its two engines. Moments after takeoff, the jet's right engine somehow tore free from the wing at about 1,000 ft. and plummeted to a field below. The plane landed safely back at O'Hare, and all 32 people aboard Piedmont Flight 1480, bound for Charlotte, N.C., escaped injury. Smoke was "coming out of one engine," said a passenger. "We saw it leaning, almost falling off, and then it fell off." Neither Piedmont nor Federal Aviation Administration officials were prepared to offer an explanation last week for what caused the engine to fall.