Los Angeles – Federal safety investigators on Monday urged more stringent inspections of some jet engines after a failure during a maintenance test in June sent engine parts flying across Los Angeles International Airport and ignited a fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended inspections of turbine disks in General Electric CF6-80A engines, which are in use in airliners worldwide, about twice as often as the Federal Aviation Administration requires.
The FAA has 90 days to respond.
“We issued the airworthiness directive based on the best data available, but, of course, we’ll review the NTSB recommendations,” FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.
The June 2 accident was an “uncontained failure” of the disk in the engine on the American Airlines Boeing 767’s left wing, the safety board said. Engine parts hurtled into the 767’s left and right wing fuel tanks, and the leaking fuel ignited, the board said.
The disk ruptured because of a fracture that originated at a small dent, and there were also two similar cracks on the disk, the board said.
