A Northwest Airlines DC-10 carrying 256 people made an emergency landing in Denver after its tail engine apparently began breaking up. Officials said they found shrapnellike holes in the engine cover.
The incident bore striking similarities to the engine failure that preceded last month's crash of a United Airlines DC-10 in Sioux City, Iowa, in which 111 people died.Flight 308 from Los Angeles to Minneapolis landed safely at Stapleton International Airport about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, said airport spokesman Richard Boulware.
Less than 30 minutes earlier while cruising at 39,000 feet, the crew reported a loss of oil pressure and severe vibration in the tail engine and shut it down, said Greg Feith, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board in Denver.
NTSB investigators from Washington, D.C., were due in Denver today, agency officials said.
Accidents that do not involve fatalities or massive damage to aircraft normally are investigated by regional offices, but the Northwest failure was "too much of a coincidence," Feith said, referring to the Sioux City crash.
"We heard a loud noise," said passenger Don Burnett. "It was a boom and a shudder. We couldn't see it. We just felt it," he said. "Someone said something was hanging from the engines."
"They experienced a severe vibration from the No. 2 engine, (and) as a precautionary measure, they elected to make an unscheduled landing," said Kevin Whalen, a spokesman for the St. Paul, Minn.-based airline.
The No. 2 engine is mounted in the aircraft's vertical stabilizer, just above the tail wing. On United's Flight 232, the No. 2 engine disintegrated, shooting shrapnel that apparently severed hydraulic lines used to control the jet. The investigation into the cause of that crash is continuing.
Boulware said there were "multiple shrapnellike holes in the outer cowling" or cover of the No. 2 engine.
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Jet skids to landing
A Trump Shuttle airliner carrying 49 passengers and a crew of seven skidded to a safe emergency landing Thursday on its nose and rear landing gear in Boston after the front landing gear failed to extend.
The Boeing 727-200, coming in from New York, had made a touch-and-go maneuver at Logan International Airport, bringing the plane down lightly in an effort to loosen the front landing gear, but the attempt failed.
The pilot then brought the plane down on its rear landing gear and gracefully suspended the nose off the runway until the plane had slowed, then lowered the metal nose to the ground.