IF YOU’RE a fretful flyer, there’s a decent chance that one of your biggest fears is the plane’s engines cutting out mid flight.
But what if we told you that you that pilots routinely switch the engines off while you’re 30,000 feet up in the air?
When you’re flying, it’s hard not to notice the changing sounds of the engines throughout the course of the flight.
And when the engines quieten down and sound as if they’ve been switched off, that’s probably because they have.
The surprising truth that many airline passengers don’t realise is that modern aeroplanes — even hefty jumbo jets — are designed to be able to glide for extreme distances without using the engines, The Sun reports.
The plane’s ability to glide is why modern jets will never just drop out of the sky, even if every engine fails mid-flight.
This reassuring feature is the reason why engine failures, although terrifying, don’t necessarily have to result in disaster for aeroplane passengers.
Although it is no mean feat to land a plane after gliding all the way down from 37,000 feet, pilots can at least keep the craft under control while it makes an emergency descent.
During the time it takes for the plane to glide to the ground, flight crews can try to solve any engine problems and locate a viable landing area.
Back in 1982, British Airways Flight 9 was struck by volcanic ash on the way to Jakarta, Indonesia, at 37,000 feet.
After all four engines failed, the pilot managed to glide the plane safely for around 20 minutes, descending gradually from 37,000 to 12,000 feet.
In this window, flight crew were able to restart all the engines and went on to land safely.
Sometimes, pilots are even able to land a plane after a catastrophic engine failure, as seen in the case of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his miracle landing on the Hudson river.
The pilot, whose story is the subject of 2016 film Sully, managed to glide a crippled Airbus A320 to safety on the river in 2009, after it was struck by birds at 2800 feet.
Aviation expert Patrick Smith, author of co*ckpit Confidential, has told how aeroplane gliding is more frequent than you might think.
“It’s not the least bit uncommon for jets to descend at what a pilot calls ‘flight idle,’ with the engines run back to a zero-thrust condition,” he wrote.
“They’re still operating and powering crucial systems, but providing no push. You’ve been gliding many times without knowing it. It happens on just about every flight.
“Obviously an idle-thrust glide is different from the engines quitting outright, but even then, the glide itself would be no different.”
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.
