UK temporarily bans Boeing B777s with certain engine after Denver incident

Boeing 777s with the same engine as the one which caught fire after taking off from Denver will be temporarily banned from entering UK airspace.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the move on Twitter after a United Airlines 777 using Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines bound for Hawaii was forced into an emergency landing.

Its right engine was seen engulfed in flames and debris plunged towards the ground shortly after take-off on Saturday.

All 231 passengers and 10 crew onboard, as well as those on the ground, were unhurt.

Mr Shapps’s tweet, later echoed by one from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), followed a separate incident in the Netherlands on Saturday, when a plane’s engine caught fire shortly after take-off from Maastricht Airport and a woman was injured by falling debris.

The engine in that incident, which is being investigated by the Dutch Safety Board, was not the same as that in the Denver engine fire.

The US plane-maker has urged airlines to ground all 777s with the Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engine, advising against using them until the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) finds an appropriate protocol for inspections.

Currently, there are 69 such planes in service and 59 in storage.

Boeing said in a statement released on Monday: “Boeing is actively monitoring recent events related to United Airlines Flight 328.

“While the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] investigation is ongoing, we recommended suspending operations of the 69 in-service and 59 in-storage 777s powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines until the FAA identifies the appropriate inspection protocol.

“Boeing supports the decision yesterday by the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau, and the FAA’s action today to suspend operations of 777 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines.

“We are working with these regulators as they take actions while these planes are on the ground and further inspections are conducted by Pratt & Whitney.”

The development represents a fresh blow to Boeing as its 737 MAX returns to the skies nearly two years after the fleet was grounded following two deadly crashes.

In the case of the 777, the FAA had earlier ordered that inspections of the hollow fan blades, unique to the engine model, be “stepped up”.

It comes after another engine explosion, this one six minutes after take-off, forced a flight between Okinawa and Tokyo to turn back in November.

And a Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engine failed when a blade broke off on a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Hawaii in 2018.

In each of the incidents, no one was hurt.

Two of the engine’s fan blades from the Hawaii flight were fractured and the rest of them “exhibited damage”, according to a separate statement from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

United Airlines, the only US airline to use the engine model in its fleet, is temporarily removing affected planes from service.

It said it will work closely with the FAA and the NTSB to “determine any additional steps that are needed to ensure these aircraft meet our rigorous safety standards and can return to service”.

Japan has gone a step further and decided to stop operating a total of 32 planes with that engine, according to Nikkei Asia.

The country’s ministry of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism also ordered the planes out of service.

Boeing’s 737 MAX fleet was grounded in March 2019 following two fatal crashes in which 346 people were killed.

In November, the US aviation regulator cleared the way for its return to US skies, followed a week later by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the UK’s CAA.

(c) Sky News 2021: UK temporarily bans Boeing B777s with certain engine after Denver incident