Preventing Airplane Engine Explosions

Big Compute

We’ve seen it on the news multiple times -- Engines exploding mid-flight on commercial aircraft, raining metal debris on anything and anyone below. The cause is often the same -- fatigued fan blades hitting their last leg, snapping off and destroying the engine and its casing, while terrifying passengers on board. Some flights like United 328 out of Denver managed to land safely without passenger injuries, while others haven’t been so lucky. So why are these fan blades breaking apart and wreaking havoc on the skies, and are these incidents realistically preventable? In this episode, we speak to Reamonn Soto, CEO of Sensatek Propulsion Technology -- an innovative startup creating fan blade sensors that grant an inside view into exactly what’s happening to an engine in real time, forwarding goals of putting these fan blade accidents behind us for good.