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What: Delta Airlines Boeing 757-200 Philadelphia to Paris
Where: Shannon Ireland
When: November 20, 2010, 6:30 am
Who: 152 passengers 7 crew
Why: While over the Atlantic, the right engine developed problems. Pilots shut it down, and diverted to Shannon where they made a safe landing. Passengers were provided an alternative flight.

George’s Point of View

I usually try just to get the facts. But when people read these alerts, it is not just the plane. Like on this flight. Can you imagine being aboard this flight, over the Atlantic—as on the infamous Air France Flight 447—and losing an engine? Can you picture your feelings at the moment you realize the failure, and every moment thereafter, until you were safely on the ground? Even with a capable functioning plane, and competent crew. Even with the knowledge that the plane could afford to shut down an engine. Having to sit politely in your row, and believing on some level, that you were placidly waiting to die while strapped in like a trapped like a Chilean Miner in a snow globe hurtling through space toward who knows what fate? Even if I do not write it, behind these lines, there is always a human element.