After a scare involving a United Airlines plane's engine failure in Denver, Japan's transport ministry ordered a halt to all flights of Boeing Co. 777s equipped with the same type of engine.?
According to Japan Times, in December last year?an engine on a JAL plane operating a Naha to Haneda service experienced trouble, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing.?
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It was the same Pratt & Whitney engine and the ministry had since instructed JAL and ANA to inspect aircraft using the engine more frequently than usual.?
The footage captured by Naru Kurokawa, 40, has resurfaced amid calls from Boeing to ground its entire global fleet of 777-200s which use Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, in light of the Denver incident involving United Airlines Flight 328.??
Kurokawa told Reuters how he had been aboard a Japan Airlines (JAL) flight from Naha Airport in Okinawa to Japan on December 4, when he heard a loud 'ripping noise' followed by a huge jolt.¡®I was panicking in my head, thinking about how I was maybe going to die,¡¯ he said, adding that the flight was forced to make an emergency landing around 40 minutes after take-off.¡®I thought I would go insane if I accepted the thought of death, so I focused on taking videos of the situation.¡¯
JAL and the ministry concluded that the incident in December was caused by fan blade damage.??
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According to Reuters, Saturday¡¯s incidents involving a United Airlines 777 in Denver and a Longtail Aviation 747 freighter in the Netherlands put engine maker Pratt & Whitney in the spotlight, though there is no evidence they are related.?
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Pratt & Whitney, which is owned by Raytheon Technologies Corp, said it was coordinating with regulators to review inspection protocols. It is expected to increase inspections ordered after previous incidents.
After the Colorado engine failure, when United Flight 328 dropped debris on a northern Denver suburb before landing safely, Boeing recommended the suspension of 777s with the same variant of PW4000 turbine and Japan imposed a mandatory suspension.??
In Feb. 2018, a 777 of the same age operated by United and bound for Honolulu suffered an engine failure when a cowling fell off about 30 minutes before the plane landed safely. The NTSB determined that incident was the result of a full-length fan blade fracture.
Because of that 2018 incident, Pratt & Whitney reviewed inspection records for all previously inspected PW4000 fan blades, the NTSB said. The FAA in March 2019 issued a directive requiring initial and recurring inspections of the fan blades on the PW4000 engines.?