Aviation Fact-5: You don't need both engines to fly!

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Credit: Maxime | Photographer

You're flying in an aircraft cruising at 36000ft, enjoying the services provided to you by the airline and looking at the mesmerizing views of nature from the aircraft.

Suddenly, you hear a huge bang and intense vibrations begin to occur. Few minutes after, you come to realize that an engine has failed.

Although anyone would be appalled from this frightening situation, but here's a thing to contemplate before freaking out:

Firstly, the passengers must have faith in their pilots. Pilots are appropriately trained to handle such situations and have undergone extensive sessions and tests involving convoluted actions from them.

All pilots are taught to abide by rudimentary aviation rules regardless of the severity of any airborne event. This includes the following three acronyms - Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

The gist of this is to ensure that pilots prioritize flying the aircraft first, ensuring its full controllability (Aviate) before verifying or correcting its navigational path.

Once the pilots ascertain the controllability of the aircraft, they can go for the next step i.e. Navigate followed by communicating the relevant information to the concerned personnel in this case the Air Traffic Control.
It is their successful completion of such sessions and rigorous tests, when they receive their licenses and certifications.

Secondly, engineers have made sure that all airplanes are designed in such a way that even if one engine fails, the airplane can still operate safely which is the crux of this article.
Yes, that's true! In-fact, it can even continue the take-off and then safely land with just one engine.

Although, when operating with half the engine power, it can make the airplane less-fuel efficient and reduce its range effectively, they are designed and tested for such critical situations.

Apart from that any aircraft which is intended to fly on long-haul routes, especially those that fly over oceans or through uninhabited areas like the Arctic must be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for Extended-Range Twin Operations (ETOPS) which basically tells how far an aircraft can fly with one engine operative.
For example, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is certified for ETOPS-330. This signifies that Boeing 787 can fly for 330 minutes which is effectively five and a half hours with just one engine.
In informal aviation circles, ETOPS means “Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim”.

Nevertheless, there have been instances where-in all engines failed and still the plane was able to land safely.
So next time when you're flying in an aircraft just trust the engineers and pilots!