More info please
I was on the Virgin America flight VX-28 red-eye from SFO to JFK that made an emergency landing in Grand Junction, Colorado at approx 2 am on 9/8/11.
I was one of the first and definitely the most vocal passenger who saw what I can only describe as "orange-yellow circular jet flame" that was coming out the back of the engine on the right side of the plane. This occurred roughly 5 to 10 seconds after a significantly loud noise occurred, the kind that makes you look around at the other passengers and wonder "wtf was that" or "that's not good".
I plan to write my entire experience in greater detail, but wanted to activate an unused domain I had laying around to this site where other people on the flight can learn more information. I am not sure how the information flow officially happens but noticed when I returned from my trip, there seemed to be a downplay by the airline and interesting accounts from fellow passengers in at least the local news and some valuable comments on other websites.
In a way I want to stop obsessing about this and I am grateful that we were all safely returned to the ground. I was not aware at the fact that a plane like ours can continue to fly some distance on one engine and generally was under the assumption that problems occur during takeoff or landing or in bad weather, none of which was the case here as we were at 30,000 feet and had been cruising for 2 hours or so. Hopefully soon we can all find out what exactly happened.
News links:
http://www.kjct8.com/news/29124396/detail.html
http://www.krextv.com/news/around-the-region/Emergency-Landing-Passengers--129499443.html
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5250958/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/09/08/sfo-flight-makes-emergency-landing-in-colorado/
http://avherald.com/h?article=4429d787
I was one of the first and definitely the most vocal passenger who saw what I can only describe as "orange-yellow circular jet flame" that was coming out the back of the engine on the right side of the plane. This occurred roughly 5 to 10 seconds after a significantly loud noise occurred, the kind that makes you look around at the other passengers and wonder "wtf was that" or "that's not good".
I plan to write my entire experience in greater detail, but wanted to activate an unused domain I had laying around to this site where other people on the flight can learn more information. I am not sure how the information flow officially happens but noticed when I returned from my trip, there seemed to be a downplay by the airline and interesting accounts from fellow passengers in at least the local news and some valuable comments on other websites.
In a way I want to stop obsessing about this and I am grateful that we were all safely returned to the ground. I was not aware at the fact that a plane like ours can continue to fly some distance on one engine and generally was under the assumption that problems occur during takeoff or landing or in bad weather, none of which was the case here as we were at 30,000 feet and had been cruising for 2 hours or so. Hopefully soon we can all find out what exactly happened.
News links:
http://www.kjct8.com/news/29124396/detail.html
http://www.krextv.com/news/around-the-region/Emergency-Landing-Passengers--129499443.html
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5250958/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/09/08/sfo-flight-makes-emergency-landing-in-colorado/
http://avherald.com/h?article=4429d787