FAA clears PW-4000 powered 777s to fly again
Pratt & Whitney PW-4000 powered Boeing 777
United Airlines said Tuesday that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had cleared the return of the airlines’ Boeing 777s powered by Pratt & Whitney PW-4000 series engines.
The Pratt & Whitney PW-4000 powered Boeing 777s were grounded back in February 2021 after an aircraft performing a flight from Denver to Honolulu suffered an uncontained engine failure over Denver in which the engine caught fire and dropped debris in residential areas, the aircraft returned safely to Denver airport with no injuries reported.
The failure pertains to the PW4077’s engines 112-inch diameter fan that has hollow titanium fan blades, paint flaking was found to be an issue affecting about 25% of the blades, this required either a touch up or complete repaint. Inspections were ordered on the fan blades but documentation was insufficient and the inspections were not carried out correctly.
777 uncontained engine failure
United who operates the largest number of the type said on Tuesday that the FAA had approved a service bulletin that would be used to make the necessary changes to get these aircraft back in the sky.
United CCO Andrew Nocella said: “We've made it through the process. And we expect to start flying the aircraft again ad hoc probably within the next week, and officially in the schedule on May 26th. We pre-planned to fly roughly half the triple-sevens this summer. And we have the appropriate staff and pilots to do that,”
The airline currently has 52 aircraft of the type, that represents 10% of the carrier’s total capacity which it desperately needs for this year’s expected busy summer travel season that is expected to be above pre-pandemic levels.
The airline said last week that it plans to bring the planes back into the air gradually and that it hopes to have 30-35 aircraft flying by July.
“The FAA approved the service bulletins that will be used to make the necessary changes outlined in the Airworthiness Directives to the Boeing 777-200 with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines,” the FAA said in a statement.