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- NATION, Page 31American NotesAVIATIONTwo Engines Are Better
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- Airlines routinely lose baggage, and one airplane in flight
- last year even lost some of its skin. In the sky near Chicago's
- O'Hare International Airport last week, a Boeing 737 lost something
- just as important: one of its two engines. Moments after takeoff,
- the jet's right engine somehow tore free from the wing at about
- 1,000 ft. and plummeted to a field below. The plane landed safely
- back at O'Hare, and all 32 people aboard Piedmont Flight 1480,
- bound for Charlotte, N.C., escaped injury. Smoke was "coming out
- of one engine," said a passenger. "We saw it leaning, almost
- falling off, and then it fell off." Neither Piedmont nor Federal
- Aviation Administration officials were prepared to offer an
- explanation last week for what caused the engine to fall.