Airbus And Boeing Pilots Spice Things Up By Turning Off Engine In Flight

In an interesting “turning off” of events, word on the airwaves is that in the past two months alone, there have been at least three but possibly more incidents of “commanded in-flight shutdowns” aboard SpiceJet Airlines while enroute to their destinations. A commonality is the fact that apparently all incidents involved engines made by CFM International, a 50-50 partnership between France’s Safran Aircraft Engines and America’s General Electric (GE) Aviation.

A “commanded in-flight shutdown” (CIFS) occurs when a pilot intentionally turns off an engine after encountering problems, much like one would reboot a PC. And of course, the general public is assured in the pronouncement that modern commercial airline can fly and land safely with one engine. In three incidents, two involved the Airbus A320neo operated by Air India, and the other a Boeing 737 Max operated by SpiceJet.

Prior to this recent spate of CIFS, its been reported that Indian aviation authorities have observed a number of CIFS, with regulators going so far as to ground the A320neo with engines manufactured by America’s Pratt & Whitney.

The incidents are currently under investigation, and Air India representatives are on record as saying that “it accords top priority to safety and our crew are well adept and trained at handling such a situation”, while SpiceJet chalked its unexpected return to base as “a technical issue”.

FMI: https://spicejet.com, https://airindia.in