Over the Ocean on Two Engines

In the 1954 movie The High and the Mighty, a calm and courageous John Wayne pilots a propeller-driven DC-4 airliner to a safe landing in San Francisco even though two of the plane's four engines have stopped working. Aircraft experts say the chance that two engines would independently break down on one of today's jetliners is only one in a billion hours of flight. For that reason, the Federal Aviation Administration arrived at a preliminary proposal last week that would allow commercial jets with only two engines to make most transatlantic flights. As of now, such routes can be flown only by planes with at least three engines.

The rule change, which could go into effect by next summer, would be a boon to Seattle-based Boeing and Airbus Industrie, the West European aircraft consortium. Boeing has a new 767 twin-engine airliner with enough range to cross the Atlantic, and Airbus is building a similar plane called the A310-300. Many transatlantic airlines will probably be eager to buy and fly twin-engine jets because they burn about 50% less fuel than three and four- engine models of comparable size.