Special April 1, 2011 Issue

Talking about aircraft engines... (old joke, but it fits today)

Paddy and Seamus were flying from Boston to Dublin on a 747. Half way across the Atlantic, there was a loud noise outside the plane - one of the engines fell off the wing.

A short while later the captain announced 'Ladies and gentlemen, we're very sorry to advise that we have lost one of our engines. However, there is no need to worry - the plane can fly perfectly safely on three engines. However, because we now have one less engine, we're unable to fly quite so fast, and we estimate that we'll now be approximately 45 minutes late arriving into Dublin.'

Seamus nodded to Paddy, and they each calmly ordered another Bushmills.

The flight continued, then all of a sudden, the plane lurched sharply to the left, then straightened up again. Paddy looked out the window, and saw flames streaming out of one of the two engines on that wing. After a minute or two, the flames died out.

The captain made another announcement. 'Ah, sorry about that, but we've just had a fire break out in one of our three remaining engines. Fortunately, the fire extinguishing system worked perfectly, but of course we've had to shut that engine down. Don't worry - we still have two perfectly good engines, and the plane is continuing safely. So as not to overstress the two remaining engines, we're cutting back our cruise speed, and estimate that we'll now be about two hours late arriving into Dublin'.

Seamus and Paddy looked anxiously at their watches, then relaxed and ordered another Bushmills.

Well, bad things happen in threes. Half an hour later, Paddy said to Seamus 'Did you hear that - the engines sound different?'. They discussed what that might mean for several minutes, and then the Captain's voice came over the announcement system again.

'Ah, ladies and gentleman, I don't quite know how to tell you this, but we've had a problem with another engine. We've had to shut it down, but, if my math is correct, that still leaves us with one perfectly good engine, and I promise you we're going to look after that one very carefully, all the rest of the way to Dublin. We'll probably now be about three or four hours late.'

Seamus looked at his watch, calculated when they would now be arriving into Dublin, and said to Paddy 'We're running very late already. I sure hope we don't lose the last engine or else we'll be up here all day'.