Airline Regulators Fret Over Breakups Of GE Jet Engines: Racing to Avert Any More Disentegrations

Wall Street Journal ^ | Jan 12, 2001

[Fixit]

Formatting as in original.

Thanks to s2baccha for giving the link to this article on another thread.

[Fixit]

Sorry, I blew the date, it is the 2nd, not the 12th.

[John H K]

Nice try, but everybody knows it is impossible for some of the most complicated machines ever built to crash because of a mechanical failure.

[MamaLucci]

According to Mr.Gross on Fox News, a former NTSB official, it can't possibly be the GE engines that caused this crash.
It's gotten to the place where I don't believe anything the media tells me about ANYTHING.

[Fixit]

Amazing, too, isn't it, that a reasonable thread like this generates very few postings, yet a cheese/moosewatch paranoid rambling conspiracy thread will generate 150 comments....

[Fixit]

Thanks for the link!

[sinkspur]

This problem has been around for TEN YEARS???

GE's going to be (and ought to be) in very deep trouble.

Nothing's infallible, but do Rolls-Royce engines break apart from stress?

[bvw]

American is on desperately hard times money wise. GE is the king of cash. You do the math.

[Fixit]

To prevent this, GE is setting up special
"engine hospitals" around the world to
inspect and doctor ailing engines quickly.

A few of them serve particular customers,
such as one at New York's Kennedy airport
for American Airlines, a big user of the GE engines.

[Rustybyrd]

Great post....thanks

[Lessismore]

From the NTSB Safety Recommendation A00_121_124, dated December 12, 2000, dealing with an on-ground unconstrained engine failure of a GE CF6 mounted on a Boeing 767 (see http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/2000/A00_121_124.pdf).

"This incident raises serious safety concerns because, if it had occurred during flight rather than on the ground during maintenance, the airplane might not have been able to maintain safe flight. Examination of the airplane revealed that a portion of the HPT stage 1 disk penetrated the left wing just inboard of the No. 1 engine pylon. Investigators determined that this portion of the disk, which is approximately 140 square inches and 45 pounds, penetrated a dry bay, made a 1-inch-wide vertical cut through the lower half of the forward wing spar, and penetrated a fuel tank before exiting through the top of the wing and passing over the fuselage. Examination of the engine revealed that the disk rupture split the engine in half, leaving the rear of the engine joined to the front only by the fan midshaft. The disk had separated from the shaft and was completely missing from the engine. Two pieces of the disk, which amounted to about two-thirds of it, and three blade slot posts were recovered. Although an extensive search was conducted, the remaining one-third of the ruptured disk (the piece that passed through the wing) was not recovered. Trajectory analysis performed by the Safety Board indicates that it may have landed in the Delaware River, which is adjacent to the airport."

The problem is that the wreakage fell into 4 areas -- the wing pieces in the Bay, the gas station, the main wreakage, and additional unspecified wreakage several blocks away. It seems very improbable that an "unconstrained engine failure" would cause the breakage of the airplane into those separate parts. However, if the rear part of the spool disintegrated, it may be possible to break the wing spar causing the wing to break, and this might strike the tail surfaces.

It is unclear from ongoing TV reports whether the debris in Jamaica bay is wing or tail. An early report said that the divers in the Bay were searching for the flight recorders, which would indicate that it is the tail section. The recorders have been reported as found, but I haven't heard where they were found.

[Fixit]

Great find!

That article you found might merit posting on its own thread.

[Lessismore]

Thanks, but maybe moderators would like info on the same general topic in the same thread. Besides, yours is cross referenced from other threads now ;-)

[Paradox]

Nice try, but everybody knows it is impossible for some of the most complicated machines ever built to crash because of a mechanical failure.

HA! Good one.

I'd like to bump this article, because it has some very important information that doesn't seem to be getting coverage elsewhere.

[dglang]

Over the past several years, our F16 fighters have developed a very bad reputation for engine failures. Some of which have resulted in fatal crashes. Usually, the pilot is able to jetison, but sometimes still experiences injuries.

[Clinton's a rapist]

So, bottom line, how many airliners have exploded due to this kind of problem?

[mlocher]

Nice try, but everyone knows...

yup -- and servers don't crash either...

[Fixit]

Two that I have found so far. I am still searching to see if there are more.