"Joerg" wrote in message
om...
Helicopters are sensitive things. When something would go wrong with the
rotor it may not be recoverable. We had one go down about 1/2 mile from
here last year and unfortunately that one was fatal. I believe a bolt had
come off the rotor assy so there probably was nothing the pilot could have
done.

There was one in the North Sea not so long ago, where a manufacturing fault
in a blade was exacerbated by a lightning strike, and failed sometime later
in flight. The aircraft was based at my local airport.

That is scary. I bet the first time a crew experienced a flame-out because
the Concorde flew by got white knuckles, too. What I read was that it
affected all the engines.

There was a BA 747 that lost all four engines in a cloud of volcanic ash.
The captain (Eric Moody, I think his name was) was quoted as telling the
passengers something along the lines of: "All four engines have stopped, but
rest assured we're doing our damndest to get them going again". They
descended from cruise altitude in a glide, assuming they'd have to ditch,
and when they popped out of the ash cloud at about 12,000 feet, the engines
spooled up one by one (they'd been left in auto-start mode) and they limped
into a nearby airport. The engines were all knackered thanks to being
shotblasted by the ash (and the windscreen was almost opaque) but provided
enough power that they got away with it.

I remember that we got some serious attention when landing in Franfurt on
one engine. All the fire trucks and ambulances they could muster were seen
on the ground, lights flashing and all. They cleared the whole airspace
and that alone was an unusual sight. It wasn't too scary for me because I
used to parachute. That's where you have to stick the landing no matter
what. No engines...

Well, there's no harm in erring on the side of caution. I remember when a
club at my airport ran a Jet Provost, and the pilot called to report smoke
in the cockpit. Flashing lights, immediate clearance to land however he
wanted on whatever he wanted, everything else in the area told to bugger off
for a while or orbit where they were, you name it. Turned out everything was
fine and it was actually a tiny fluid leak onto a hot pipe, but if the
controller gives you unconditional free rein, it's one less thing to worry
about.

D.