Posted on 08/29/2006 9:49:46 AM PDT by UNGN
A family of General Electric engines widely used on Boeing Co. commercial jetliners and some Airbus planes should be inspected more than twice as often as federal regulators are requiring, the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.
The warning comes only a week after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. airlines to inspect the engines more frequently after one exploded on an American Airlines jet that was on the ground in June, sending a 50-pound piece of metal more than a half mile across Los Angeles International Airport.
Had that engine explosion occurred in flight, the NTSB said, the plane might have crashed.
It was not the first time the same kind of General Electric engine had suffered a catastrophic explosion.
The safety board "is concerned that another failure may be imminent if action is not taken," the board said in a letter to the FAA.
An FAA spokeswoman said the agency will review the safety board's recommendations.
The board wants the engines removed from planes and inspected after 3,000 takeoffs and landings, rather than the 6,900 to 9,000 that was required under a directive issued Aug. 17 by the FAA.
The engine family in question is the General Electric CF6-80. It is used on Boeing 747s and 767s and the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, as well as the Airbus A300 and A310 widebody jets.
The FAA has said there are about 4,150 of that engine model on jetliners worldwide. More than 1,100 are on jets operated by U.S. airlines.
The agency ordered more frequent inspections of the engine after the June 2 incident at Los Angeles International Airport.
Mechanics were revving up the engines of an American Airlines 767 when one suffered what is known as an uncontained failure, when engine parts are ejected. In that case, the engine explosion sent pieces as far as 3,000 feet. One fragment of the engine disk penetrated the American Airlines 767 after bouncing off the ground and severed the jet's left keel beam and partially severed the right keel beam before lodging in the air duct of the second engine on the other side of the plane.
One fragment was hurled across two runways to where an Air New Zealand 747-400 had just landed.
Chunks of metal ripped through the 767 wings and leaking fuel sparked a fire that seriously damaged the American Airlines jet.
Three maintenance personnel were in the Boeing 767 at the time, but they were not hurt.
"The American Airlines incident raises serious safety concerns because, if it had occurred during flight rather than on the ground during maintenance, the airplane may not have been able to maintain safe flight," Mark Rosenker, the safety board's chairman, wrote in the letter to the FAA recommending more frequent inspections of the engines.
In December 2000, a similar explosion occurred during a ground test of a US Airways 767. There were no passengers on the plane. That incident prompted the FAA to mandate more frequent inspections of the General Electric CF6-80 engines. In 2002, an Air New Zealand 767 suffered an uncontained engine failure on a flight from Brisbane, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand. A fragment from the engine damaged the left wing. The plane returned safely to Brisbane.
The American Airlines engine failure apparently was caused by fatigue cracks in the engine disk.
The latest FAA order requires all of the CF6-80 engines on U.S. jets to be inspected by December 2008. The engines that are of concern were built between 1980 and 2001. The engine family was redesigned in 2001.
A spokesman for the safety board said the FAA has 90 days to respond to the board's recommendations.
Ge had a problem in the 90's with questionable disks being passed thru quality control. The FAA slapped them at that time.GE's "Gotta make Jacks numbers" mentality was cited.
looks like some managers trying to meet his numbers again.
Good Enough?
BUMP!
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