An airport worker takes a picture of a cargo container lodged in a plane engine in this photo taken by a passenger at Los Angeles International Airport. REUTERS/Keigo Morita

Cargo container stuck in engine, halts take-off of JAL jumbo jet in LA

Wednesday 13th May, 03:56 AM JST

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wanderlust at 05:37 PM JST - 12th May

kiwiboy - allow some leeway for bad grammar and imprecise English. He probably found it when he went outside to check on the problem - engine warning light - shutdown - abort take-off sequence. There's quite a bit of airflow when one of those turbines spools up... that's why they have those restricted areas.
Nessie at 05:51 PM JST - 12th May

Sux to be JAL.
rogerbentham at 06:28 PM JST - 12th May

holy cow. how on earth did this happen?
Kwaabish at 08:38 PM JST - 12th May

Well, I guess the only good part about this is that it was a cargo container as opposed to the Southwest Airlines incident where it was a groundcrew that was sucked into an engine of a 737...

Still... someone screwed up on procedures on the ground at LAX...
1keiron at 08:49 PM JST - 12th May

@kiwiboy: Simple answer to that question really. If you're a passenger sitting at the window seat at the wing on a B744 then it's very noticeable if a baggage can gets sucked up and lodged into the engine inlet which would quickly lead to you reporting it..well I know I would. You'd most likely hear it as well. Also in the cockpit of a B744 the #1 engine still is visible. I'd assume most likely an alarmed passenger would have reported it at the same time the pilots heard it and the rest of the aircrew heard it; either that or performance issues on the engine would have reflected on the EICAS inside the cockpit raising an issue. Also the same kind of incident happened years ago on a Delta Airlines Tristar on the #3 engine. Anyway as for the JAL 744, no damaged fan or the rest of the engine, but it will require a replacement of the engine inlet ring. Dont be fooled by power of a 747 engine, they have a frightning amount of suction power..even when the engine is spooling down.
namabiru4me at 09:27 PM JST - 12th May

It has been Youtubed...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK03nnIKfNY
888naff at 09:30 PM JST - 12th May

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8045086.stm
Sarge at 09:37 PM JST - 12th May

I'd like to have seen the pilot's face when he saw that container in his jet's engine.
nisegaijin at 10:35 PM JST - 12th May

lol, that's just bizarre.

i am surprised no passengers reported it.
Fadamor at 11:13 PM JST - 12th May

I'm not a commercial pilot but I play one on Flight Simulator X :-) I'm not sure EICAS would start noticing the problem until the engine was spooled up to test for full-power. Until then the amount of air slipping around the container would probably have been enough to keep the engine spooling at idle.

I AM a private pilot and can state that when taxiing your head is on a swivel from "beam to beam" to avoid ground collisions. Not too much scanning back along the leading edge of the wing, though, until it's time to check for the proper deployment of the slats.

The outboard engines are mostly masked from passenger view by the inboard engine nacelles. People up in first class could have seen it if they had looked back on that side, but you know those snooty first class passengers were just sitting back sipping their first round of champaigne. :-D
Disillusioned at 11:46 PM JST - 12th May

JAL believes that the container somehow was dragged into the engine.

Wow! How many super minds did it take to come to this astute conclusion?
motytrah at 12:34 AM JST - 13th May

A 747 produces enough thrust to throw a bus around like it was made of paper. The only thing that's surprising is that the engine wasn't totally ruined.
Senjin at 01:25 AM JST - 13th May

Man, I knew airlines were hard-up these days, but can't they find a safer place to stow the extra luggage?
ca1ic0cat at 02:36 AM JST - 13th May

wow, that is the strangest thing I've seen on an airliner before - at least one that hadn't crashed. I wonder when they picked it up? I wonder how much it's going to cost to fix.

I know this could happend anywhere but I tend to avoid LA like the plague. LAX SUX.
timorborder at 10:15 AM JST - 13th May

Listened to an interview with a passenger on this aircraft. According to them, the pilot only realized he had a problem after one of the runway security vehicles parked itself in from of the 747 in order to stop them taking off. Don't know if this is true or not, but rather melodramatic all the same.