Quote:
Originally Posted by Wadcutter
How the heck do you fly a two engine aircraft on one engine? Wouldn’t it constantly pull to one side all the time?
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Airliners fly quite well on one engine and as was said earlier, they can climb on one. Yes, it will bank and roll toward the dead engine, quicker and harder with increased power on the good engine.
In the SWA case, they were also in an emergency descent because of the explosive decompression, so they had the good engine power reduced to idle. During the descent, the roll would be nearly eliminated. As they leveled to slow for the approach, they would have to increase the power, but the autopilot will adjust perfectly and fly beautifully on one engine.
As TomB said, emergency descents and single-engine approaches are practiced almost every time airline pilots climb in a simulator for training. Pilots are usually dealt one emergency at a time in the sim. In this case, the SWA pilots had an engine loss and a emergency descent to handle at the same time. It's very doable, but you're as busy as a one-armed paperhanger until you park at the gate. The SWA pilots clearly did an excellent job.
