The Whittle story is a little more involved than that. His first run didn't go boom, but it did go out of control, get red-hot, and need to be shut down by cut

The Whittle story is a little more involved than that. His first run didn't go boom, but it did go out of control, get red-hot, and need to be shut down by cutting off the fuel pump. It didn't stop immediately, though, which is a terrifying failure mode. It took him a couple of years to sort out the design problem that led to unburnt fuel pooling where it shouldn't.