Comment by jacquesm
19 hours ago
You may well be right. Or... maybe there was a non-stress related manufacturing issue with a turbine blade. Maybe it ingested a bird, maybe it sucked in some crap lying on the runway. Maybe there as an issue with a part that was replaced during the 2 hour service just prior to the flight. Maybe there was an error during that service, or a defect that was overlooked. And a million other possibilities.
I mean, I don't think I've heard of a bird strike knocking the engine off a plane.
Oh, interesting. They even made a movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549
Once an engine breaks the question is whether or not it becomes unbalanced, that is one reason why they can become detached from the plane.
The account on that page seems to indicate that the engines didn't detach as a result of the bird strike. One detached upon impact with the river, and the other was still attached.