Niki Lauda, eat your heart out

My company has a policy limiting the number of high level execs traveling on a plane at a time. I wonder if plane manufacturers have similar restrictions. It’d be an ironic to for them to simultaneously assert that their planes are safe for the general public, and also believe the risk is too high for a planeload of their execs to fly in one.

Controlled flight into terrain is a thing

> They'd have to show at least one plane with a bearing gone that still flies as intended.

That depends on the meaning of “safety of flight”. I don’t know what it means in aviation, but do not rule out that there is significant room between “flies as intended” and “result in a safety of flight condition”.

For example, if an engine were to complete drop off the plane, would that necessarily result in a safety of flight condition, or does “the plane will be able to continue take off and land again” mean safety of flight isn’t affected?

Some of it may be related to the 3-engine design, if Boeing had modeled that 2 engines still provided sufficient power in all scenarios.

But a takeoff does seem like the worst time to catastrophically lose 1/3 power, even without FOD intake by the central engine.

Certainly two engines would provide enough power in all scenarios, including take off. That’s a fundamental safety requirement that any airliner meets.