> I assumed the engine fell off

It's an engine - the thing pushing the entire plane forwards. Provided it is running (and at takeoff that's definitely the case), an engine being liberated from its plane suddenly has a lot less mass holding it back, so the logical thing to do is to shoot forwards. And because the wing is attached to the upper side of the engine, anything short of an immediate failure of all mounting points is probably also going to give it an upwards trajectory.

Add in air resistance, and you get the "swing across the wing and back" seen in the photos.

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lazide 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, but if the engine grenades it can take it’s mounts with it and not shoot off like a bottle rocket in front of and over the plane, dropping down and under the plane instead (or even just sit there). Same with a compressor stall, or whatever.

It’s clear from the photos this wasn’t the engine failing at all, and in fact the engine kept producing a ton of thrust (probably until it ran out of fuel as it pulled it’s fuel line apart while departing the wing), and instead the thing that is supposed to be so incredibly strong that it restrains all this chaos failed.

Which is a pattern in this family of aircraft, but definitely not a common or normal thing in general eh?

Most aircraft, the engine stays with the airframe even if it turns into a giant burning pile of shrapnel and dead hopes and dreams.

	▲	nicole_express 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Engine pylons are actually usually designed to fail in a particular way to ensure the separation happens as safely as possible; obviously that didn't happen here, which will probably be something the NTSB will have to investigate why. The up and over is usually actually the safer direction I think? But in this case it also moved laterally, which is possibly what fouled the tail engine and made it unrecoverable. Will be interesting to see the final report.
	▲	inferiorhuman 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Fully functioning engines departing from aircraft isn't common but it's not unheard of either. Off the top of my head it's happened a few times on the 747 and 737.