http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/08/18/100bus_a11geengines001.cfm
Published: Friday, August 18, 2006

FAA orders closer checks of GE jet engines

Los Angeles Times
Prompted by the explosion earlier this summer of an engine in an unoccupied Boeing 767 parked at Los Angeles International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday ordered airlines to follow a more aggressive maintenance schedule for a widely used General Electric jet engine series.

The order, which will affect up to 800 engines in several aircraft models, came before the completion of an independent federal safety board investigation of the incident. The FAA decided to act at this time, officials said, because new information from the investigation warranted shorter maintenance intervals for some wide-body aircraft engines.

The June 2 explosion was similar to two engine failures in the last six years caused by a metal disk that holds fan blades in place spinning out of control and destroying the engine.

The new directive, which goes into effect at the end of this month, will significantly tighten existing engine maintenance schedules, mandating a 70 percent reduction in the interval between inspections and repairs for the oldest General Electric CF6-80 engines.

For newer engines, there will be an average 40 percent reduction in the number of permitted takeoffs and landings before they are overhauled. The order requires all engines in this family to be inspected, regardless of usage, by December 2008.

About 1,155 of these General Electric engines are installed in wide-body airplanes in the United States, including Boeing 747s and 767s, McDonnell Douglas MD-11s, and Airbus A300s and A310s. Airlines must remove the massive engines to conduct the required inspection, which involves running an electrical current over the metal disk.