1 The chances of all of an airliner's engines going out may be 10 million to one, but with millions of flights each year, it still happens.
2 At least four U.S.-built jetliners, in addition to the Boeing 737 that crashed Sunday in England killing 44 people, have experienced the loss of all their engines in flight, according to government records: --Last May, an El Salvadoran Taca Airlines 737 lost both engines while descending in a thunderstorm near New Orleans but managed to land safely on a levee.
3 --In August 1987, another 737 belonging to a European regional airline lost power in a snowstorm over Greece, but pilots restarted the engines.
4 --In May 1983, an Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 en route from Miami to the Bahamas lost all three of its engines, but pilots managed to restart one and land safely back in Miami.
5 Investigators concluded that maintenance workers neglected to check that critical oil seals were in place.
6 --In April 1977, a Southern Airways DC9 lost power in its two engines in a hailstorm and crash-landed in New Hope, Ga., killing 62 people and injuring 23 others.
7 The four incidents occurred over a period when U.S. airliners were logging between 6 million and 7 million flights a year.
8 A British investigator said there was a one in 10 million chance of both of a two-engine airliner's engines failing on the same flight.
9 The two incidents involving 737s powered by CFM56 engines like those on the British flight led the Federal Aviation Administration to issue air worthiness directives ordering pilots to take special procedures during landings in stormy weather.
10 FAA spokesman Fred Farrar said the directives would not have applied to the British flight, however, because it was in clear weather and at a high altitude when the first engine failed.
11 Although some officials at the scene in England initially said pilot error was not to blame, investigators said Tuesday they were looking into the possibility that the pilot erroneously shut down his remaining good engine instead of the one that caught fire in the air.
12 National Transportation Safety Board records show 92 double engine failures in U.S. airplanes since 1962, but the vast majority were in small planes that ran out of gas.
13 When both engines on a plane go out, investigators normally would look at the performance of the pilot, particularly actions taken after one engine fails, along with the engines themselves, the fuel and electrical systems, and the possibility of sabotage or maintenance failure, among other possible causes.
14 Planes with the CFM56 engines such as those used on the 737 have been involved in 13 air accidents or incidents, including four that were attributed to engine trouble, according to safety board records.
15 Two days before the British Midland crash, a federal judge in Cincinnati ordered the unsealing of a four-month-old lawsuit that alleges that components in engines including the CFM56s used in the new Boeing 737 that crashed in England were inadequately tested at a General Electric plant in Seattle, Wash., and that the company falsified test reports on military engines.
16 GE has denied inadequate testing of any CFM56s, and FAA spokesman Farrar said a timer assembly for the engines involved in the suit could not have caused the British crash.
17 He said its failure would only cause a small increase in engine temperature but not fire.
18 Farrar said no government investigation of engine testing is planned before investigators determine the cause of the crash.
19 'Any engine has to meet very rigid requirements as to performance and construction,' said Farrar.
20 'There is no reason to believe the GE engines had any fatal flaw.'
21 The engines were thoroughly tested in France, at the GE plant in the United States and again after they were installed in the plane in Seattle, said General Electric spokesman William Shumann.
22 He said about 1,000 of the engines are in use.
23 But James Helmer, lawyer for former GE Seattle plant manager Anthony DiVincenzo, who filed the suit, said the timer part and possibly other GE-built components of the CFM56 were inadequately tested.
24 He said DiVincenzo secretly filed his suit after he exposed inadequate testing to GE officials and was demoted and reassigned to a plant in Cincinnati.
25 'The government should have been investigating this engine six months ago, not after 44 people are killed,' Helmer said in a telephone interview.
26 Helmer said a team of whistleblower lawyers would conduct an investigation of engine manufacturing, including visits to the GE plant in Seattle, an examination of documents on engine tests and depositions from plant workers and officials.
27 The CFM56 engines on the British plane were manufactured in France with both U.S. and French components under an agreement between GE and the French company SNECMA.
28 The CFM56s used on 737s have been in service for about five years.

- - In May 1983 , an Eastern Airlines Lockheed L - 1011 en route from Miami to the Bahamas lost all three of its engines , but pilots managed to restart one and land safely back in Miami .
managed to restart one
how did they get it restarted?