LAX Incident Third Involving Type Since 2000

The explosion of a Boeing 767 engine on the ramp at LAX earlier this month. The uncontained failure of another 767 engine during a run-up test on the ramp at Philadelphia in 2000. The uncontained failure in flight of a 767 engine over Auckland, New Zealand in 2002.

What do they all have in common? They all involved various models of General Electric's popular CF-6 engine.

It was a problem the NTSB thought had been solved back in 2003... but now, it appears that may not be the case and investigators say they're deeply concerned.

"There's 360 degrees around, and it's really the luck of the draw which way the pieces come out," said aircraft maintenance expert and former NTSB member John Goglia, commenting on the dangers of pieces being flung from an engine and impacting the fuselage or a wing, to the New York Times.

At issue are the fan disks inside CF-6 variants built between 1982 and 2001. After that, the disks were replaced with stronger parts.

Three years ago, with an eye on uncontrolled failures involving CF-6 engines, the FAA ordered inspections of the fan disks on all 3,400 CF-6 engines in service.

A spokesman for GE tells the Times that the suspect parts must be inspected within half of their estimated lifetime. That's about 11,000 cycles... but the interval may be shortened as a result of the June 2 failure involving an American Airlines 767 undergoing a maintenance check at LAX.

As Aero-News reported, the force of the uncontained failure flung parts up to a half-mile away... severed the wing tank fuel lines and caused a ground fire. The plane will likely be judged a total loss as the result of that engine failure.

So far, about two-thirds of the CF-6's produced with the weaker fan disks have been inspected and so far, no problems have been found.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov, www.geae.com