Dozens of Airbus A380s face urgent checks after cracked part dug from ice

[turbinetree]

Business News
August 21, 2019 / 9:03 AM / Updated 3 hours ago

Tim Hepher 4 Min Read

LONDON (Reuters) - Investigators probing an engine explosion on an Air France A380 in 2017 are studying a possible manufacturing flaw in a recently salvaged cracked part in a move likely to trigger urgent checks on dozens of Airbus superjumbos, people familiar with the matter said.

The focus of a two-year-old investigation into the mid-air explosion over Greenland, which left the plane carrying more than 500 passengers with the front of one engine missing, has switched to the recently recovered “fan hub,” the people said.

The titanium alloy part is the centerpiece of a 3-metre-wide fan on engines built for the world’s largest airliner by U.S.-based Engine Alliance, co-owned by General Electric (GE.N) and United Technologies unit Pratt & Whitney (UTX.N).

It had sat buried in Greenland’s ice sheet since September 2017 when one of four engines on Air France flight 66 abruptly disintegrated en route from Paris to Los Angeles. It was prised from the ice in June after a high-tech aerial radar search.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-a380-exclusive/dozens-of-airbus-a380s-face-urgent-checks-after-cracked-part-dug-from-ice-idUSKCN1VB1GH

[RainCaster]

1. Wow. That is a really critical part in bypass fan engines

This is the equivalent of the crankshaft in your car engine. But much more important because hundreds of lives are at stake when it fails. I spent years designing test equipment for jet engines to detect such cracks, I know what a Big Deal this is. I hope that P&W learn a lot from this discovery.

[turbinetree]

2. Yepper spot on.............................inspected Aircraft................