It flew over my sons house he saw the smoke coming from the engine and said it was low and not sounding very healthy which drew his attention. There were bits coming off it but nothing fell in his neighborhood. Apparently there was not enough time to dump fuel so it landed with relatively full tanks. A friend of ours who is a Captain with United Airlines told me that this is the sort of thing they practice on the simulators all the time, so to the pilots it would have been a straightforward emergency landing which is why the passengers deplaned via steps not chutes. The critical point would have been if this had happened on takeoff when you need the two engines, once up as in this case then one engine is good enough. Pugh Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub got excited though.
I should have added that the pilot of this aircraft is a good friend of the Captain I mentioned above.
I think you are right. I once asked an old friend of mine (who had been a BA pilot for 21 years) how much power was held in reserve on take-off? He replied “none”. Always wished I’d never asked after that.
