The experts at the Pratt & Whitney aircraft car that burst into flames and forced a United Airlines pilot to make an emergency landing shortly after taking off from Denver blew up at least two other flights.
Three years ago, a fan blade broke on one of the PW4000 engines that powered another United Airlines Boeing 777-200 aircraft, this time while flying across the Pacific Ocean on a San Francisco flight to Honolulu.
And in December, two fan blades broke in the same type of engine on a Japan Airlines Boeing 777-200 flying from Naha to Tokyo.
Just like in Denver, the pilots on both of these flights were able to land their planes safely and no one was hurt.
“This is not the first time this has happened,” said aviation expert Greg Feith on the NBC program “Today”, referring to the PW4000 engine function.
But after Saturday’s fiery delivery in the air over Colorado, the images of which went viral on social media, Boeing grounded all its older 777-200 aircraft worldwide while federal investigators inspected the PW4000 engines on the aircraft, which were only used by United used. Airline in the US and by airlines in Japan and South Korea.
In particular, the director of the Federal Aviation Administration, Steve Dickson, said that inspections are being carried out for the hollow fan blades that are unique to this engine model, which is used exclusively on Boeing 777 aircraft.
Former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jim Hall, said the faulty blades are only on ‘the first generation’ of the PW4000 engines.
“I suspect the reason the planes are all taken out is because they (the FAA and Pratt & Whitney) have no inspection process in place and that they are embarrassed,” Hall told NBC News. “The FAA has been responding over the past decade to the economic interests of the aviation industry, which takes precedence over safety.”
Pratt & Whitney, which is owned by Raytheon, insisted they work with federal investigators.
“Flight 328 from United Airlines is currently being investigated by the NTSB and Pratt & Whitney has sent a team to work with investigators,” the company said in a statement. “Pratt & Whitney is actively coordinating with operators and regulators around the revised inspection interval of the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines propelling Boeing 777 aircraft. ”
But an NTSB investigation of 13 February 2018, the malfunctioning of a Pratt & Whitney engine on the Honolulu-bound United flight, blamed the company for not conducting strict inspections.
“The lack of training led the inspector to make an incorrect evaluation of an indication that led to a blade with a tear being re-employed where it eventually broke,” the report reads.
Boeing said it also works with the federations. “We believe every investigation is an opportunity to learn how the industry can continue to make air travel safer for all,” the company said in a statement.
Feith said safety measures were built into the Boeing 777-200s to prevent them from colliding with this type of engine function.
“The FAA requires the manufacturer of a twin-engine aircraft like this to certify it so that it can fly on one engine, which he did,” Feith said.
The fact that the flames took so long to put out still raises worrying questions about the safety of the PW4000 engine, he said.
“If this plane was over the ocean for an hour or two, the bigger concern is that there is a fire suppression system on the engine and the fire kept burning,” he said.
United Flight 328, with 231 people on board to Honolulu, ran into trouble on Saturday shortly after taking off from Denver.
The video of a passenger shows one of the plane’s engines catch fire and fall apart before debris begins to rain on the suburbs of Denver, while the pilot reports ‘mayday’ to the control tower and the jet begins to turn.
A similar scenario takes place on Saturday on another Boeing plane in Holland. A Boeing 747-400 cargo plane, powered by a smaller version of the PW4000 engines, began to crash engine parts shortly after taking off from Maastricht Airport on Saturday.
No one was injured and Dutch authorities are investigating the incident.
