General Electric Aviation, maker of the jet engine that caught fire on a British Airways plane taking off from Las Vegas, has said it is inspecting parts from other engines of the same types as part of a US federal investigation.
On 8 September BA flight 2276 was on a McCarran international airport runway bound for London when the left engine burst into flames. Takeoff was aborted and all 157 passengers and 13 crew members survived; some had minor injuries.
Updated findings released on Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board indicated the fire started with the engine’s spool, a key part in the high-pressure compressor that gives the plane power.
“We’re doing a full pare-down of the spool and analysis of the components,” said Rick Kennedy, a spokesman for GE Aviation.
The twin-engine Boeing 777 was built in 1998 and registered to British Airways a year later. By the end of 2013 it had flown nearly 77,000 hours, according to the British Civil Aviation Authority. GE90 engines are used in most Boeing 777s.
GE Aviation said that the spool, which holds the blades in the GE90-85B engine, was among the first ever made for that model in 1995.
The manufacturer said it was voluntarily analysing 38 similar spools of about the same age that were out of service awaiting maintenance and repairs. Other inspections of working engines were expected.
“The 38 will help us decide what engines might need to be inspected,” Kennedy said.
GE said this was the first engine failure of its kind, as spools could be similar in design but were not built identically. There are about 400 base GE90 engines being used to power 167 planes.
NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said there was no talk of grounding any planes with similar spools.
The NTSB also said the case would be analyzed to determine a probable cause after the current fact-finding process. A final report would not be issued for several months.
With Associated Press
