An Air France A380, operating between Paris & Los Angeles as AF66 had an uncontained engine damage while flying over the Atlantic last evening. Pictures clicked by the passengers on board the plane show how the entire Engine Cowling came off. There was a lout thud reported on the plane, however, the plane stabilised shortly after the incident.

Inflight pictures. Loud thud and a lot of vibration. pic.twitter.com/s9GFIyssrh

— Rick Engebretsen (@RickEngebretsen) September 30, 2017

The engine was reportedly shut off by the pilot within 30 seconds of the incident, and they declared a mayday and headed to divert to Canada where they landed at the Goose Bay Airport. Here is the FlightAware record of the flight.

PHOTO Air France #AF66 Paris to Los Angeles declared Mayday. Emergency landing in Goose Bay. #4 engine suffered severe damage.
📷@DanMcneely pic.twitter.com/24V2LRcuKD

— Tom Podolec (@TomPodolec) September 30, 2017

According to a former aeroplane mechanic on the plane, he figured it was a fan blowout on the plane. A video of the plane landing shows an inoperative Engine 4 at the time of landing.

Just received this video from Kate Heath of Air France emergency landing in Goose Bay. #yyr #cbcnl pic.twitter.com/uVOl0wRmRs

— Jacob Barker (@JacobBarkerCBC) September 30, 2017

While it was a mayday situation, the pilots seemed very confident and the passengers very calm till the landing worked out.

 

Here is an in-flight video.

Here’s a video of the landing. pic.twitter.com/aLUoM5avLH

— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) September 30, 2017

Air France has told NBC News the plane was too high for a bird strike, so reasons are unknown currently for what could be the cause of the engine cowling blowing out.

Air France has pressed relief measures in place. As per AF,

Air France confirms that the crew of flight AF 066 operated by A380 from Paris-CDG to Los Angeles decided to divert to Goose Bay airport (Canada) following serious damage to one of its four engines.

Air France has immediately decided to make arrangements for two flights from Goose Bay (Canada) to Los Angeles in an effort to get the 497 passengers of Flight AF066 to their destination as quickly as possible.
For now, the two flights are scheduled to leave Goose Bay at 04h15 (local time). One flight will be aboard an Air France B777-300, and the other aboard a B737, an aircraft specially chartered by Air France.
Flight AF066 landed safely at the Goose Bay (Canada) airport ‪at 15h42(UT). The regularly trained pilots and cabin crew handled the incident perfectly.
The passengers are now in the care of airline staff.

Apparently, the people are finally off the plane after 23-hours of being on the plane. Goose Bay regularly receives aircraft diversions but they did not have a ladder high enough to get people out of the A380.

Air France cancelled a scheduled Montreal – Paris flight and moved the B77W to operate the relief flight onwards to Los Angeles.

Of course, this is not done yet. The full cause of this explosion would need to be found out, but I’m proud of the entire Aviation community who managed it so professionally to get the plane on the ground with no lives hurt and no significant damage to the plane as well.