Two simultaneous incidents involving Boeing aircraft engines put the aviation giant back in check | Economy

Boeing does not win for shocks. Weighted by the impact of the pandemic, the aviation giant chain incidents that call into question the safety of its devices and further erode its corporate reputation, following two fatal accidents recorded in recent years. The latest were the fall of fuselage pieces from a commercial flight in Denver, USA, and the loss of turbine blades from a cargo plane in Maastricht, Netherlands, following individual engine failures, this Saturday. While none of the events caused significant personal injury, the manufacturer has announced the immobilization of 128 units of the Model 777 with a Pratt & Whitney (PW) engine – which was damaged in Denver – while Dutch authorities are investigating what has happened. happened with the 747 cargo. 400 (Jumbo), which after the fire of one of its engines, also PW, spread small pieces of metal over the cities of Meerssen and Maastricht. Two people were slightly injured.

The incidents, the cause of which is still unknown, are yet another setback for a company that, like the rest of the industry, is suffering from the collapse of operations as a result of the pandemic and the serious reputation crisis that followed two deadly accidents. 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia respectively. Until the incidents on Saturday, on both sides of the Atlantic, Boeing had barely managed to enjoy any normalcy for a few months after being cleared in late November for the flights of its 737 MAX model, which was launched on the ground. nearly two years from these accidents, with 346 deaths.

Shares of Boeing fell nearly 4% at the opening of the Wall Street session on Monday, stabilized and traded. Raytheon Technologies Corporation, owner of the Pratt & Whitney engines, was also down about 2% in the early stages of trade.

The 128 Boeing 777 planes, equipped with the engine model involved in the incident of the plane that took off from Colorado, the P&W 4000-112, have been immobilized on the ground, a company spokesman confirmed this Monday, following the ‘recommendation. ‘to suspend flights performed the day before. The American airline United Airlines, protagonist of the incident; The two largest Japanese airlines, ANA and JAL, and the South Korean Asiana Airlines had already announced between Sunday and Monday to immobilize this type of aircraft in their fleet; practically all airlines fly this model. According to the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), only airlines in the United States, Japan and South Korea use the 777 P&W 4000.

Japan’s Transport Ministry said on Monday it had already ordered stricter inspections after a JAL 777 traveling the route from Tokyo to Naha, on Okinawa Island, had problems with “a motorcycle belonging to the same family” in December. The PW4000 type is only used in the B777s, although most units in this series are equipped with GE Aviation engines.

The UK has also announced the temporary ban on entry into the airspace of the crashed model in Denver, while the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA, for the English acronym) has asked for more information on these engines, although it has ruled out both incidents are related. For its part, PW, which is owned by Raytheon – one of the major defense contractors in the United States – has stated that it is coordinating a review of inspection protocols with air regulators. According to the FAA’s initial estimate, the failure of the Denver aircraft appears to be due to “ the hollow fan blades unique to this engine model, which is only used in the Boeing 777s, ” said Steve Dickson, FAA administrator. in a statement.

Dickson explained that, after consulting his team of experts, he had instructed them to “issue an emergency airworthiness directive requiring immediate or more intensive inspections of Boeing 777 aircraft equipped with certain Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines.”

Both damaged aircraft had to make emergency landings shortly after take-off. The person who left Maastricht for New York with a shipment of pharmaceutical products did so in Liège (Belgium). The one from Denver, with 241 people on board, returned to the same airport, not without leaving the dangerous scrap metal suburb of Broomfield, where a piece of the hull fell on the doorstep of a house.

Of the 128 immobilized aircraft, 69 are in service and 59 in storage. During nearly two years of immobilization of the damaged device in Indonesia and Ethiopia, the 737 MAX, the company lost some $ 20,000 million (more than $ 16,800 million, including compensation for the victims), in addition to 1,000 orders and staff. reduction of almost 19% in 2020 alone.

The crisis hit the FAA, which has historically been accused of giving Boeing preferential treatment, and whose procedures were reformed by a US Senate committee in November. Doubts about the scrutiny of the devices’ certification had a dent in the traditional leadership of the regulator, whose opinion was undoubtedly held by the rest of the countries for decades, while at the same time reassessing the role of global regulators.

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