How Would You Like to See This Outside Your Airplane Window?

As many of you know, I'm not a big fan of flying. Now, it's not that I need three Bloody Marys to board a plane, but I do feel every drop and vibration when we're in the air. Imagine what it was like this weekend for the folks flying on a United Airlines flight that had just taken off from Denver when one of its engines blew apart. You can see some video that one of the passengers took from his window below.

Amazingly, the pilots managed to get the Boeing 777 with some 231 passengers and ten crew members back on the ground safely despite having only one engine to fly with. This is not the way I would prefer staring my Hawaiian vacation, as that's where they were headed.

The other part of the story is that parts of the engine came crashing down on a Denver area neighborhood. One picture shows a hole in the roof of a house and another captured the ring of the outer engine case leaning up against a house. Can you imagine sitting in your living room watching a sporting event in your comfy recliner when the piece of an airplane comes falling through your roof?

Thankfully, no one was hurt in the air or on the ground.

I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like that. A few years back, Ally and I were flying to Memphis for our annual radio conference at St. Jude Children Research Hospital, and our plane with some pretty scary turbulence. I say, scary because some of the passengers actually screamed. No, it was not me. But it sure wasn't fun for someone who already doesn't like to fly. Ally, somehow, managed to sleep right through it.

I was watching an interview of a former pilot talk about this event over the weekend. He was saying that this really shows how safe flying is. Despite losing an engine on takeoff, the plane was still able to fly and land safely thanks to innovations in airline travel, and the training the pilots now get and the skill that they posses.