CoolP,

Once in the early 70's I was flying a charter from KHOU to LFPG. We were heavy with fuel and as we leveled off at cruise altitude I noticed that the number two turbo compressor had tripped off. I tried to restart the compressor to no avail. I started looking around and noticed the #2 low oil pressure light would not test??? Then I found a few other weired things that were not looking right with #2 engine. I took a walk back in the cabin to have a look at the #2 engine. It looked normal except there was what looked like some plastic sticking out from the front part of the cowl.

On returning to the cockpit I decided to check the fire warning system. All tested normal except #2, it would not test??? After checking other things on #2 it was decided to shut it down and land in KJFK to see what was going on. We had to dump fuel to get near landing weight. The fuel dump chute on the 707 is between the engines instead of at the end of the wing. Dumping is always something to be careful with!

We were able to give the company a heads up for our arrival and they had a second plane ready so we could move the passengers from the sick plane to another plane without delay. When we got to the gate and the #2 cowl was opened we discovered that the 15th stage high pressure bleed duct had cracked and very hot air was leaking into the engine cowl. It had melted almost all the wiring for the various items that we saw in the cockpit. The fire warning did not work is because some of the wiring had melted - bad design  >:( . The stuff that looked like plastic sticking out of the cowl was the melted blocker doors from the fan reverser section.

Since this was older cable and push rod design, we were able to shut the engine down with mechanical controls. I wonder if these new fly-by-wire designs would have survived all that heat and let us shut the engine down?

Lou