EMERGENCY INSPECTION OF JET ENGINES
US aviation authority orders checks within 20 days after fatal incident on Southwest Airlines flight
THE Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered emergency inspections on Friday of jet engines like the one that ruptured during a recent Southwest Airlines flight, leaving a passenger dead.
“Fan blade failure due to cracking, if not addressed, could result in an engine in-flight shutdown, uncontained release of debris, damage to the engine, damage to the airplane and possible airplane decompression,” the regulatory authority said.
In line with recommendations made earlier by engine maker CFM, FAA ordered that all CFM56-7B engines that had performed 30,000 or more accumulated flight cycles be inspected within 20 days.
That affects about 352 engines in the US, or 681 worldwide.
Each inspection of the engines, which power Boeing 737 aircraft, takes about four hours, according to CFM International, a joint venture between America’s GE Aviation and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines.
It said about 150 of the engines had gone through the process. A cycle concerns a complete flight, from engine start to takeoff and landing to complete shutdown.
Once the inspections are completed, CFM recommended to repeat the process every 3,000 cycles — about two years in airline service — but FAA did not require such a measure.
CFM also recommended that fan blades with more than 20,000 cycles be inspected by the end of August — affecting an additional 2,500 engines. Around 60 airlines use the CFM56-7B, according to the company, which said 500 technicians had been deployed “to support customers and minimise operational disruptions”.
The directive comes after the left engine of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 suddenly blew apart during a Tuesday flight from New York to Dallas.