File this both under ”terrifying” and ”all’s well that ends well.”
Continue reading: Yikes: Regional Jet Loses Winglet During Turbulence
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
LOL'd at the second item in the "In this post" rundown being:
"This isn’t supposed to happen"
Ahhh, don't ground the 170/5. I have 4 scheduled on them next week. Hopefully they just *wing it* 😉
What about the story earlier this week of the SpiceJet plane which encountered severe turbulence that injured several people? I’d say it is even more newsworthy than this. Some details: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/as-scary-as-runway-34-passengers-on-spicejet-horror-flight-recount-narrow-escape-1944304-2022-05-02 and https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61304965
Seems fortunate that the detached winglet didn't hit anything (or anyone) on the ground.
this incident appears to be getting way too much attention. Yes, unusual, yes,scary since while in the air you do not know what else is failing.
But many (mostly larger) jets can actually operate for a limited time without a winglet. It is mostly there to save fuel.
Oh, it hit *something*.
But whatever it hit couldn't/wasn't noticed by anyone who could talk.
The magic of the internet is that there are countless free ways *you* can highlight such information, instead of telling someone else how to run their business.
On an OMAAT scale of
1 (someone wore something unusual on a plane and look at the video of what happened!)
to
10 (wide open first class award seats to London/Paris for only 10,000 miles!)
I'd make this at least a 6.
NO.
The winglet is there to enhance lift and efficiency. The plan is to have TWO wnglets. Having one introduces many issues.
The other issue is that this winglet could have hit the fuselage and caused an uncontrolled failure AT cruising level.
Regardless of whether there was a mtx fault, or if somehow the winglet's ultimate loads were indeed exceeded.... it's worth noticing how cleanly it was designed to sheer off.
That's a pretty significant accomplishment, in favor of safety.
There was a whole 737 that ditched into the ocean off HNL last year and not a peep out of you on it, Lucky. But a winglet falls off and it's a crazy story....
Some older aircraft were retrofitted with winglets - 767/757 for sure but the age of this 175 seems to indicate it was original
Loss of winglet is a serious flaw that hopefully will be investigated. This would have resulted in asymmetrical lift and drag that could cause some inexperienced pilots a problem.
Negative. That was an ancient 737-200, a cargo airline, and they lost their license immediately after the incident.
They lost an engine, and the remaining engine lost power after getting over-heated trying to maintain power to compensate for the loss of thrust in the other engine.
That said…I will accept your overall point.
I was the passenger who noticed the winglet missing and alerted the flight attendant who then told the pilots (who did not know the winglet was missing) and I can attest that this was a very scary scenario. I have videos of the landing, and pictures of the wing in flight. I appreciate the crew. What a terrifying experience.
I know I'm being extremely picky about this, but in the interest of accuracy, your close-up picture of the winglet is from American Eagle's heritage liveried E-170, not an E-175. American is adding a number of E-170s to its fleet because they can be easily configured to seat 65 passengers and fall under its scope for small regional jets.
Here's a story about the E-170 heritage liveried aircraft. It's flown by Envoy Air.
https://www.envoyair.com/2021/08/19/a-very-special-embraer-170-lands-at-envoy/
Cited in this story is accolades to redundant systems, etc. the story shouldn’t stop there. The pilots are the last line of defense. They safely were able to fly the plane to the ground and eliminate a sure catastrophe.
Missing part of an airfoil is a huge event. The other side was in tact which creates an opposing force which forces undue pressures on the aircraft and flight controls the pilots use to guide the aircraft.
Praise should go to the flight crew.