Mon, Aug 15, 2005
Engine Bursts Into Flame Shortly After Take-Off
It's another in a string of
incidents for Japan's beleagured JAL Airways -- a DC-10 was forced
to make an emergency landing at Fukuoka Airport Saturday when its
number-one engine burst into flames shortly after take-off. This,
after a government warning about possible defects in some DC-10
stator vanes and turbine blades.
Saturday's incident rained flaming parts down on parts of
Fukuoka Prefect as the aircraft returned to the field. None of the
229 people on board were hurt. But five people on the ground sought
medical treatment after they were either hit by the fragments or
tried to pick them up from the ground and were burned.
The incident, the latest in a string of problems for JAL, came
after the government warned in June about possible stator vane
problems within DC-10 engines. JAL acknowledged the report, derived
from an FAA warning in the US, and promised to replace the
questioned parts by 2010.
Police and JAL workers spent four hours Saturday, probing the
engine with a fiberscope. They found nine of the engine's turbine
blades had been cracked or otherwise damaged. One of the blades
apparently broke apart, colliding with the other blades and sending
a shower of more than 600 white-hot fragments out of the engine,
along with a long gout of flame.
It was the latest in a series of incidents that
led the Japanese government to take extraordinary safety-related
steps against the carrier. JAL CEO Isao Kaneko resigned in May as
the government's efforts to draw attention to the safety problems
mounted.
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