Jet engine bursts into flames on runway

CHICAGO: An America Airlines jet engine that failed seconds before take-off at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport flung broken turbine parts as far as 800m from the scene, a federal investigator said.

Disclosure of the “uncontained engine failure”, in which internal parts breach the protective housing designed to keep them safely enclosed – even in a breakdown – came a day after a mishap that authorities said neared the point of disaster but caused no serious injuries.

Shrapnel escaping from the engine’s outer cover can tear through the cabin or rupture fuel tanks in the wings.

Such “uncontained” failures are extremely rare, and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators were looking for clues as to whether the fault lay with the engine itself, with its manufacture or a freak event such as debris on the runway entering the engine.

The General Electric engine that powered the plane was a workhorse model known as the CF6, introduced decades ago, said GE spokesman Rick Kennedy. The American Airlines plane engine dates from the 1980s or 1990s, and had been serviced by the airline, he said.

American Airlines Flight 383, a twin-engine Boeing 767 bound for Miami with 161 passengers and a crew of nine, was headed down a runway on Saturday for departure when the right-side engine failed, forcing the crew to abort take-off seconds before the plane was to have become airborne, authorities said.

Leaking jet fuel caught fire under the wing, as the crew evacuated passengers via emergency exit chutes from the plane. Fire crews arrived within minutes.

One flight attendant and 19 passengers suffered minor injuries in their escape. Authorities said the flames never breached the plane’s cabin.

In a sign of the intensity of the engine breakdown, at least two pieces of a stage-2 high-pressure turbine disk were flung from the scene.

One was found at a United Parcel Service warehouse nearly 1km south of the incident site. Another was found to the north on airport property, said National Transportation Safety Board investigator Lorenda Ward.

She said the escaped engine parts would be shipped to a lab for examination, and the crippled right engine would be sent to a GE facility to be dismantled and examined there for clues to what caused the failure.

GE Aviation, Boeing and American Airlines officials were on the scene assisting in the investigation.

The CF6 was introduced in the 1970s, and more than 4000 are currently in service on seven different wide-body jetliner models, including the Boeing 747 and 767, and Airbus A300 and A330, according to GE. The engine has racked up more than 400 million flight hours and has a record of “industry-leading levels of reliability”, Kennedy said.

The O’Hare incident marks the third uncontained GE engine failure in little over a year, following a British Airways Boeing 777 in September last year and a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 in August.

Both aircraft used different engines, the GE90 and CMF56, made by a joint venture of GE and Safran of France.