r/nextfuckinglevel 26d ago

Engine fails during student pilot’s flight

1.9k Upvotes

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u/brunaBla 26d ago

How does this happen? Is this true for smaller planes only?

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u/crazy_cookie123 26d ago

Planes stay in the air because of the wings, and the wings don't suddenly disappear when you lose your engines. Planes can glide for quite a while when they lose power provided they have enough altitude.

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u/brunaBla 26d ago

Thank you for your answer.

I guess I was picturing 747 head on plane crashes and wondered why they couldn’t glide too? But I’m sure a lot of other factors were at play too

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u/alabomb 25d ago

To add on to the other answers, here's a famous example of a passenger aircraft in a similar situation to the video in the OP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

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u/proton_badger 25d ago

The Mayday series have a great episode on that. I think it’s on Tubi.tv.