Federal aviation regulators order United Airlines to intensify inspections of all Boeing 777s equipped with the type of engine that suffered a catastrophic failure Saturday about Denver. United said it will temporarily withdraw these aircraft from service.
The ads they arrive a day after United Airlines Flight 328 had to make an emergency landing at Denver International Airport after the right engine stalled just after takeoff. Parts of the engine casing, a Pratt & Whitney PW4000, rained in suburban neighborhoods.
The plane with 231 passengers and 10 crew on board landed safely and no one on board or ashore was injured, authorities said.
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement on Sunday that, based on an initial review of safety data, inspectors “concluded that the inspection range of hollow fan blades that are unique to this Boeing 777 “aircraft engine model.
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The National Transportation Safety Board said in a separate statement that two of the engine fan blades fractured and the rest of the fan blades were “damaged.” The NTSB warned that it was too early to draw conclusions about how the incident happened.
The video posted on Twitter showed that the engine was completely engulfed in flames as the plane flew through the air. Frozen images of different videos taken by a passenger sitting slightly in front of the engine and posted on Twitter appeared to show a broken fan blade in the engine.
United is the only U.S. airline with the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 in its fleet, the FAA said. United said it currently has 24 of the 777 in service.
United said it will work closely with the FAA and the NTSB “to determine what additional steps are needed to ensure these aircraft meet our stringent safety standards and can return to service.”
The NTSB said the cabin voice recorder and flight data log were transported to its Washington lab for data to be downloaded and analyzed. NTSB investigations can take up to a year or more, although in the most important cases, the agency usually publishes some research material in the middle of the process.
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Airlines in Japan and South Korea also operate aircraft with the Pratt & Whitney engine. Japan Airways and All Nippon Airways have decided to stop operating 32 aircraft combined with this engine, according to Nikkei.
Nikkei reported that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan also ordered the withdrawal of aircraft service and the ministry said an engine of the same PW4000 family was suffering unspecified problems in a JAL 777 flying in Haneda from Naha on December 4th. stricter inspections in response.