NTSB Report on Another GE CF6 Engine Failure Resultng in Engine Separation Into Front and Rear Parts

NTSB (PDF file) ^ | December 12, 2000 | Jim Hall acting Chairman

[Fixit]

This post is cribbed from one of my other posts from this thread.

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A CF-6 exploding in 1989 causing the famous Sioux City "Cart Wheeling" DC-10 incident.

In March, 1979 an Air France CF-6 powered A300 Airbus was destroyed by fire after an engine broke up and the crew aborted a takeoff from Sanaa Airport in North Yemen. This was before the major re-design that followed.

The two comparable incidents involved a Philippines Airlines DC-10 that lost a high-pressure turbine disk while in flight near Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, in 1979, and a Thai International A-300 that aborted a takeoff in Hong Kong in 1981 when a disk flew off.

Add that to the another two incidents (A DC-10 taking off from Newark that had an engine disintegrate and the 767 ground incident described above). (Search on my name for other incidents involving AA A300's and engine problems/fires/failures.)

[Lessismore]

From the Jim Hall talk referenced in Reply #14:

"The second accident involved a Canadien Airlines Boeing 767 in Beijing that suffered an uncontained failure of one of its General Electric CF6-80C2 engine high pressure compressor hubs. While the details of this failure are not immediately known, the Safety Board is very interested and is participating in this investigation to see if it is related to other apparently similar failures leading to corrective actions that the Board attempted to initiate in August of 1995."

This appears to be similar to the Philadelphia incident, and is another uncontained failure of the same CF6 engine.

[7.62mm]

I understand that we are talking about multiple occurances of explosions in CF-6 engines. I am only saying that I did not recall the Chicago DC-10 crash as being caused by an engine failure. I understood that the engine just fell off.

Scanning through the referenced posts, I did not see where it said anyplace that the engine itself failed. Relatively minor point, I guess.

Regards,

[7.62mm]

Please see my post @ #23. Your post still doesn't answer my uncertainty about the cause of the Chicago crash. Appreciate the response.

Bugs me that I can't refer you to something definitive.

Gotta run, 0500 comes early.

Regards,

[Fixit]

They are two different accidents, so I think we are both correct.

One DC-10 accident caused by an exploding engine (uncontained failure took out all hydraulics).

Another DC-10 accident caused by an improper mounting of an engine. I can't remember if you were supposed to put the mount on the wing, then put the engine on the mount, OR if you were supposed to put the mount on the engine then put the assembly on the wing.

The problem came when the maintenance guys couldn't get it right either...

[tuesday afternoon]

In the 1989 United flight, the pilot was able to continue flying, utilizing thrusters to steer.

[aruanan]

Same engines? If so and if the problem is with the engines, then is a different airframe that important?

[Lessismore]

See http://www.airdisaster.com/investigations/aacrash.shtml regarding the crash of the American Airlines 191 in Chicago. An improper maintenance procedure was the cause. A method of using a forklift truck to remove the engine and pylon as a unit had been employed. The bulkhead attachment of the pylon to the wing had been damaged.

In takeoff, this resulted in separation of the engine and pylon from the wing. Leading edge slat controls were damaged during the separation, causing the port side slats to retract and the port wing to stall. The aircraft became unflyable and crashed with a loss of 271 on the airplane and 2 on the ground.

[lewislynn]

I think we should follow the current Republican line and demand we taxpayers bailout GE immediately ...After all we don't want their crummy engines ruinning our economy by scaring people away from flying on near bankrupt airlines.....

[7.62mm]

See http://www.airdisaster.com/investigations/aacrash.shtml regarding the crash of the American Airlines 191 in Chicago. An improper maintenance procedure was the cause. A method of using a forklift truck to remove the engine and pylon as a unit had been employed. The bulkhead attachment of the pylon to the wing had been damaged.

In takeoff, this resulted in separation of the engine and pylon from the wing. Leading edge slat controls were damaged during the separation, causing the port side slats to retract and the port wing to stall. The aircraft became unflyable and crashed with a loss of 271 on the airplane and 2 on the ground.

Sorry about the delayed response.

That is the one to which I referred in my earlier posts. Perhaps there were two similar DC-10 crashes in Chicago, but I was not aware of any but the one that crashed in the manner in which you describe. Thanks for the clarification.

Regards,