A Boeing 777 and a 747 suffered a separate mid-engine fire on Saturday, both of which caused debris to fall to the ground. Boeing (BA)’s stock has fallen.
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A Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engine on a United Airlines (UAL) Boeing 777 en route to Hawaii was shortly after takeoff from Denver. None of the 229 passengers or ten crew members were injured. There were no reports of injuries on the ground.
The aircraft was a Boeing 777-200, a wide-body body that had been in use for 25 years.
On the same day over the Netherlands, a Boeing 747 cargo plane operated by Longtail Aviation also distributed engine parts in the town of Meerssen after the engine exploded and caught fire.
The Pratt & Whitney PW4000, a smaller version of the kind on the United flight, powered the cargo plane. The Boeing 747 landed safely in Belgium, but a Dutch woman was injured by falling engine debris.
United Airlines announced on Sunday that it will take out its 24 Boeing 777s with the Pratt & Whitney engine configuration. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have the 32 aircraft they employ based on the prescription of a regulator.
I say again, Holyyyy crap! We’ll have to make NTSB work to identify the cause of this engine outage, but this video from # UA328 is insane.pic.twitter.com/V4qvPwIJ5G
– Jason Rabinowitz (@AirlineFlyer) 20 February 2021
Boeing suspended the suspension of 697 77s and 59 777s in storage with the Pratt & Whitney engines until the Federal Aviation Administration identified the appropriate inspection protocol.
Manufacturers can set up their Boeing 777 jets with engines from General Electric (GE,) Rolls Royce of Raytheon Technologies‘(RTX) Pratt & Whitney.
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Aviation supplies mixed to Boeing 777 ground
The Boeing share fell 1.1% to 214.98 on the stock market today. Raytheon fell 1.6% while GE rose 3.5%. Boeing Provider Spirit AeroSystems (SPR) added 2%.
South Korean aviation officials said they were waiting to hear from local authorities before ordering to ground the affected Boeing 777s.
A preliminary report from the National Transport Safety Council found that two fan blades in the engine were broken and that the remaining blades suffered damage.
The FAA issued an emergency directive on Sunday.
“Based on the initial information, we concluded that the inspection interval should be sharpened for the hollow fan blades unique to this engine model, which are used exclusively on Boeing 777 aircraft,” said FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement.
Boeing has struggled over the past few years with major safety issues. The Boeing 737 Max only recently returned to service after a 20-month detention due to two fatal accidents.
Follow Gillian Rich Twitter for aviation news and more.
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