BOEING 777

PASSENGER RECALLS EARLIER JET FAILURE OVER JAPAN.

TOKYO • When Naru Kurokawa heard news on the weekend that an engine had caught fire on a Boeing 777 while over the United States, he recalled his own fear in December when an engine also failed as he was flying over Japan on the same model of jet.

“I was panicking in my head, thinking about how I was maybe going to die,” said the 40-year-old, describing his alarm when the Japan Airlines Boeing 777 he was on was forced to make an emergency landing about 40 minutes after takeoff.

“I thought I would go insane if I accepted the thought of death, so I focused on taking videos of the situation,” he said of the Dec. 4 flight to Tokyo that was forced to return to Okinawa airport because of a malfunction in the left engine. He posted the video on his Twitter account.

On Saturday, a United Airlines Boeing 777 suffered an engine fire, scattering debris over Denver and prompting Boeing to urge airlines to suspend flights of 777s that use the same Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines.

Japan’s transport ministry ordered JAL and ANA Holdings Inc. on Sunday to suspend use of 777s with that engine type.

“Watching videos of the United Airlines flight and engines in flames brought back the fear I experienced,” said Kurokawa, a web director and musician from Okinawa.

He had been making a video from his seat next to the window on the left side of the plane as he heard a loud ripping noise followed by a huge shake.

An employee of the Okinawa Times newspaper Minako Kuroshima, who was also on the plane, wrote afterward that a pilot told passengers the plane was flying with only the right engine.

The JAL plane made an emergency landing. There were no injuries among the 11 crew or 178 passengers.

Japan Transport Safety Board said on Dec. 28 that two of the left engine’s fan blades were found damaged, one from fatigue fracture. Damage was also seen in other parts of the plane including the engine cowl and fuselage. A safety board spokesman said on Monday the investigation into the JAL incident was continuing.

Saturday’s incidents involving a United Airlines 777 in Denver and a Longtail Aviation 747 freighter in the Netherlands put engine maker Pratt & Whitney in the spotlight, though there is no evidence they are related.

Pratt & Whitney, owned by Raytheon Technologies Corp., said it was co-ordinating with regulators to review inspection protocols. It is expected to increase inspections ordered after previous incidents.

After the Colorado engine failure, when United Flight 328 dropped debris on a northern Denver suburb before landing safely, Boeing recommended the suspension of 777s with the same variant of PW4000 turbine. Japan, meanwhile, imposed a mandatory suspension.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) weighed in on Monday, requesting more information on the Pratt engines in light of both events. A woman sustained minor injuries in the Dutch incident, which scattered turbine blades on the town of Meerssen. One was found embedded in a car.

After receiving more information, EASA said the incidents were unrelated.

“Nothing in the failure and root analysis show any similarity (between the two incidents) at this stage,” the regulator said.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would soon issue an emergency airworthiness directive based on the United event.

Both incidents involve the same type of PW4000 engine that equips a relatively small number of older planes, some grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting the likely repercussions.

They nonetheless bring a new headache for Boeing as it recovers from the much more serious 737-Max crisis, which resulted in the grounding of its flagship narrow body jet after two deadly crashes. “This is certainly an unwelcome situation for both Boeing and Pratt, but from time to time issues will pop up with aircraft and engines,” said Greg Waldron at industry publication Flight Global.

“The Pw4000-powered 777-200 is slowly fading from service,” he said, adding the pandemic-driven slump means airlines forced to suspend it “should be able to fill any network gaps” with 787s or other 777s equipped with General Electric Co. engines.

The 777-200s and 777-300s affected are older, less fuel-efficient models still flown by five airlines: United, Japan Airlines, ANA Holdings, Asiana Airlines and Korean Air. Most are in the process of being phased out.

Boeing said 69 of the 777s operating globally with PW4000S had been in recent service, with another 59 stored. The Pratt engines power less than 10 per cent of the delivered 777 fleet of more than 1,600 planes.

I FOCUSED ON TAKING VIDEOS OF THE SITUATION.