Flight to Los Angeles Rains Down Glowing Engine Pieces By the Hundreds on People Below

A Norwegian Boeing 787-8 took off from Rome Fiumicino enroute to Los Angeles as flight DY7115 on Saturday. As it climbed from runway 16R, one of its Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines suffered a likely uncontained failure. Pieces of the engine — described as “glowing pieces of metal” rained down on the town below “in the hundreds.”

The pilot stopped climbing at 3000 feet and returned to the same runway 23 minutes after takeoff with all 310 passengers and crew on board safe. However 12 homes and 25 vehicles were reportedly damaged by falling parts. One person was actually hit, but wasn’t injured.


Copyright william87 / 123RF Stock Photo

I do love Norwegian’s fares and their new 787s. Their tickets, including in premium class, can be a value. However when things go wrong operationally they aren’t well set up to recover. Indeed several passengers tweeted their displeasure at felling ‘abandoned’ after the incident. Norwegian contracts out ground handling in Rome and doesn’t interline with other airlines.

No doubt the air frame will be stuck in Rome for a bit. It’s bad luck for Norwegian who needs to build up cash as effectively as possible for the lean winter months that aren’t that far off.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Passengers should just be happy they landed safely.. Not a time to blast an Airlines service!!

  2. Uh-oh! Will be interesting to see how this impacts not just Norwegian Air’s Boeing 787s – but possibly other airlines whose 787s are equipped with those problem plagued Rolls-Royce engines.

    May not augur well for these engines – and the airlines (Air New Zealand, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic just to name three others) whose 787s have ‘em hanging on their wings!

    We shall see…

  3. Soon airports will begin banning 787 flights with suspect engines.
    Remember, the Concorde that exploded did so after fuel tank damage that started with tires damaged running over a piece of metal that fell off a CO jet that took off prior.
    Debris or potholes on a piste (runway) are super serious concerns and I have seen airports close over suce incidents for hours.

  4. … that’s what you get when you fly low cost, low budget airlines from those BIG global players! All well and ok, until something unexpected happens! You name them, they’re ALL alike! Ryanair, EUROWINGS, WIZZ, AirAsia, Fueling …. no interlining, no own staff …. A TOTAL NO GO!!! You wanna be cheap, then don’t complain or did your travel agent not tell you the difference?! You got no travel agent, then deal with it yourself! But stop complaining, when supporting the cheap stuff.

  5. Steffi, wake up and smell the coffee has no bearing at all on the airline rather the engine manufacture who in this case is RR a long and storied engine maker who has lost its luster much like Boeing. So look to who made the engines not the airline.

    Thats the problem today there is a rush to indict no one bothers to read or understand what is actually the issue.

  6. Well, ghost rider, I see your point, but there are a bunch of people stuck in Rome that had significantly other plans. How norwegian handles those passengers is a big deal and any airline that just says we cancelled the flight deserves all of the bashing they get.

    Colin, thank you for the morning laugh.

  7. 300 psgrs on a 787 800 nightmare liner. Sardine special with an exploding RR engine, People will buy anything if it’s the cheapest. Must have been a great scene when they returned to be greeted by the ever friendly Aeroporto di Roma staff. That is if any one was there to help them UGH!!!

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