Delta’s flight 104 from Delta Flight 104 São Paulo Guarulhos to Atlanta suffered a serious problem with its left engine just after takeoff. Video of the fire from inside the cabin is incredible.
The Airbus A330-323 returned to the airport within about 10 minutes and landed safely. Departure was at about 11:49 p.m. on Sunday night. They stopped their climb around 4,500 feet and the plane returned around 11:59 p.m. The 20-year old airframe, registered as N813NW, had its left (number one) Pratt & Whitney PW4168A engine catch fire. Debris from the engine landed in the grass area and started a brush fire near the runway.
Delta Air Lines Airbus A330-323 returns safely to Sao Paulo Guarulhos International Airport after failure of its left engine shortly after departure.
by
u/PestoBolloElemento in
aviation
DL104 Engine explosion after right taking off on Mar/29/2026
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u/larruping in
delta
The cockpit crew did a phenomenal job here, as you’d expect. The pilots sounded completely calm on air traffic control as they handled the emergency.
This is something they train for, and that the aircraft can handle. Passengers sitting next to a burning engine would be terrifying, though. I’ve been on a plane that lost an engine in a bird strike on takeoff. I know that the aircraft can fly on just one engine. But that loud bang, followed by the most direct return into Dallas I’d ever been given still gave me pause and had me holding my breath until we were safely on the ground.
Two-engine planes are designed to survive and land safely after losing one engine (and even to continue to fly!), Here procedure was followed perfectly, stopping the climb, running the checklist, and returning to the nearest suitable field.
The biggest challenge here is that for a long haul departure, the plane is loaded with fuel – and overweight for landing. That leaves less marging for error – stopping takes longer, brakes heat, tires stress. When possible, that’s why pilots burn or dump fuel prior to landing. Here the immediate return was the right call. One report says “left landing gear also caught fire.” Although my read is that it’s equally possible that there could have been heated metal or sparks after the left main gear brake area overheated.
Dumping fuel with an engine fire likely not advised.
*Premium flames
I’m not sure that DL’s A330s have the fuel jettison capacity. Unless they were real close to MTOW they should have been close enough to MLW that the overweight landing didn’t present any more of a safety hazard than the engine fire did.
One of the miracles of modern aviation technology: a fully loaded 777 can take off on 1 engine lest the other engine fails when it is too late to abort.
HOLY BISCOFF! Glad everyone is alright. I’d’ve soiled my pantaloons.
Yes but its a premium fire on one of their ancient aircraft and still they maximized revenue
Premium grass fires!
Jet A fuel is currently $7.00+ per gallon, plus the environmental hazard of dumping. If it was safe to land why dump.
A Premium Delta Failure
Glad everyone is OK. The engine fire was sustained and appeared to be uncontained for a moment; it will be interesting to see the results from FAA inspections of all P&W 4168A engines currently in service. The 20 year old airframe (N813NW) has well over 100,000 hours… which is still young compared to Delta’s 767-300 fleet…
captain,
you do realize that a GE powered UA 777 had virtually the same thing happened at IAD and I don’t recall there were any inspections of all GE90 engines?
You do know also that the age of the airframe and engine are not necessarily correlated?
Engines and airframes are designed to deal w/ these failures and the fact that the airplane landed safely after 45 minutes in the air – which does seem like a long time – says the systems worked.
Glad everyone is safe. Seriously, this could not have been pleasurable for anyone.
In the spirit of “too soon?”…
I thought DL was so perfect in every conceivable way that there should NEVER be a critical engine failure. I mean, everyone is just 100% the very best at what they do. So, procurement should have caught an inferior product. Tech Ops would never install a substandard component. Tech Ops would never miss an issue on inspection. The flight deck crew would catch any potential issues on visual inspection. The plane would detect and warn of a critical failure before it ever happened.
Isn’t that what some would have us believe? You do realize that, don’t you?
there are alot of people that believe alot of things but that doesn’t mean they are real or have any basis in reality.
machines break at all companies
I love how some of the readers of this blog use it to bash a a carrier vs commenting on how the situation was correctly managed and no lives were lost. Instead, their pettiness shines like a beacon.
I wonder how snarky they would be if they were on that aircraft. Complete heartless morons!