XII. Read the texts and discuss them.

Flying on three engines across Atlantic

On the 19th of February in 2005 British Airways B747 was performing a scheduled flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow, carrying 351 passengers on the board.

   Just after airborne tower controllers reported seeing sparks and hearing popping of the engine. Crew made attempt to throttle the engine back but finally had to shut it down to avoid overheating. Captain established communication with British Airways control center in London to discuss the situation. They decided that it was safe to continue to the United Kingdom on three engines.

    B747 was unable to climb assigned altitude of 36 000 feet, so it flew over the Atlantic ocean at 29 000 feet, it increased drug and as a result fuel consumption. Having two engines on one side and only one on the other, plane’s rudder was used to keep the aircraft flying straight.

   Approaching the UK pilots realized that they wouldn’t make it to Heathrow due to short of fuel and requested emergency landing at Manchester.

   The incident happened three days after adopting European regulation that obliged airlines to compensate passengers for long delays (British Airways would need to dump 100 tones of fuel and refund passengers about 100 000pounds in case of returning to Los Angeles.)

Amsterdam Air Crash

   On the 4^th of October in 1994 Israel EL AL Air Company B 747 performed a cargo flight from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv. Seconds after airborne a terrifying jolt rocked the plane and it started rolling to the right.

In 30 seconds after a great struggle with the machine the captain managed to regain stable flight. Instruments revealed that both engines on the right wing were out of action.

Crew contacted ATC and requested emergency landing at departure airport. But it was necessary to make a wide turn over Amsterdam suburb for executing landing at the airport.

   But soon the roll came back. Any of pilots’ desperate actions could not save them and the plane. It crashed into the 11 store apartment building. 43 people who were inside the building including the members of the crew perished.

   The investigation revealed the cause of the crash. The pylon attaching one of the engines to the right wing failed due to metal fatigue and the engine detached from the wing disintegrating the nearest one. Thus both engines were torn off enabling the aircraft to keep stability in the air.

 

UNIT 8

FIRE ON THE BOARD.

I. New vocabulary.

· To ignite

· To catch fire

· To burst into flames

· To blaze up

· To extinguish fire

· To put out fire

· To contain fire

· Sparkle

· To smolder

· To suffocate

· To choke from toxic fumes

· Easy flammable materials

· To go off (about alarm)

· Source of fire

· To spread

· to break out

· to burn

· to burn out to ashes

· to explode

· electrical short circuit

· fire suspension system

· noxious fumes

· to reignite

· to fill up the cabin

· thick smoke

· substances

· fire resistant materials

· to intensify

· loosely packed

· to cut off fuel supply

· to discharge fire extinguisher

· escape chutes

· to alert fire services

· to eliminate the source of fire

· flammable solids

· smoke goggles

· smoke hood

· intervention of the flight crew