Correction Appended

The fathers of the jet engine, engineers who worked independently to develop the power plants that speed thousands of aircraft around the globe, will receive the world's single largest award for engineering, it was announced yesterday in Washington.

Officials of the National Academy of Engineering said at their annual meeting that the 1991 Charles Stark Draper Prize would go to SIR FRANK WHITTLE and DR. HANS J. P. VON OHAIN for their invention and development of the jet engine 50 years ago.

The prestigious prize, awarded every two years and sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize of engineering, carries a purse of $375,000, which is to be shared by the two recipients.

Unknown to each other, Sir Frank in England and Dr. von Ohain in Germany raced to develop jet technology that could have tipped the military balance of World War II.

A small prototype developed by the Whittle team was the first to run successfully in a laboratory in 1937, but the Germans were the first in the air with a jet-powered plane when the Heinkel 178 flew on Aug. 27, 1939, almost two years before a British test flight.

Sir Frank, 84 years old, who emigrated to the United States in 1976 and is now a faculty member at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., said that the engineering education he received in the Royal Air Force and the team of engineers and technicians he recruited helped him toward success with jet engines.

Dr. von Ohain, 79, a naturalized United States citizen who is a senior research engineer at the University of Dayton Research Institute, said that he was surprised and pleased and that he and his now-close friend, Sir Frank, were selected for the honor. They are to receive the award in February.

Photos: Sir Frank Whittle; Hans J. P. von Ohain