The company behind engine-maker Pratt & Whitney saw its share price slump in pre-market trading today after one of the firm’s engines exploded and rained down debris over Denver while another suffered a similar failure in the Netherlands.
Shares in Raytheon, the parent company of Pratt & Whitney, had suffered a 2.77 per cent drop as of 7am EST in a blow to one of the main players in the aircraft engine market and a boost to its competitors including Britain’s Rolls-Royce and Boston-based General Electric.
The near-disaster in Colorado has led to the grounding of more than a hundred Boeing 777s fitted with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, used by United Airlines as well as Japan’s two main carriers and a South Korean firm.
Boeing said today that all 128 of the planes have been grounded, saying it had recommended suspending operations of 69 in-service and 59 in-storage aircraft while US authorities investigate what happened in Denver.
A PW4056 engine from the same range was involved in Saturday’s Dutch incident, it is believed, which saw two people injured when the engine of a Boeing 747 freighter caught fire near the town of Meerssen.
Pratt & Whitney said it was ‘actively co-ordinating’ with planemakers and federal regulators after the FAA called for emergency inspections of the 777s, with the firm adding that it had dispatched a team to work with investigators.
‘Pratt & Whitney will continue to work to ensure the safe operation of the fleet,’ the engine-maker said on Sunday in its first statement since the right-engine failure on United’s Flight 328 on Saturday.
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United Airlines said late Sunday it will immediately halt all flights by its fleet of 24 Boeing 777 airplanes with the same type of engine involved in Saturday’s emergency landing in Denver. Pictures taken from the ground show the jet’s engine on fire and trailing smoke on Saturday
Two people were injured in the Netherlands after the engine of a Boeing 747-400 cargo jet burst into flames, raining debris down on the town of Meerssen (pictured, a turbine blade stuck in the roof of a car)
The announcement came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would require stepped-up inspections of 777 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 series engines after the right engine failure on United Flight 328
Before Boeing confirmed on Monday that all the 777s with PW4000 engines had been grounded, the FAA had called for stepped-up inspections which administrator Steve Dickson said would ‘likely mean that some airplanes will be removed from service’.
Dickson said that his team has ‘reviewed all available safety data following [the] incident,’ and ‘based on the initial information, we concluded that the inspection interval should be stepped up for the hollow fan blades that are unique to this model of engine, used solely on Boeing 777 airplanes’.
According to Dickson, the FAA ‘is working closely with other civil aviation authorities to make this information available to affected operators in their jurisdictions’.
Japan separately requested that airlines avoid using Boeing 777 planes with Pratt & Whitney 4000 engines for take-offs, landings and overflights in its territory until further notice, the Japan Aeronautical Service Information Center said.
Japan said on Sunday that 32 passenger jets that use the same family of engine have been grounded.
The planes affected by the order from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, are 13 aircraft operated by Japan Airlines.
The other 19 planes are operated by All Nippon Airways. None of the planes were scheduled to fly on Monday.
Japan Airlines had a similar incident occur in December 2020 after the crew requested to make an emergency landing nine minutes after taking off. The plane returned safely to Naha with none of the 178 passengers and 11 crew injured.
Officials said at the time that the left engine experienced a malfunction at approximately 16,000-17,000 feet.
Both announcements occurred just 24 hours after the United Airlines plane suffered catastrophic engine failure shortly after take-off.
The Boeing 777-200 aircraft, carrying 231 passengers and 10 crew on board, was heading to Honolulu on Saturday from Denver International Airport when debris struck the plane’s right engine, causing it to erupt into flames.
The captain had been giving an announcement over the intercom when a large explosion rocked the cabin, accompanied by a bright flash.
Passengers recalled their horror as they looked out the window to see engine casing and chunks of fiberglass falling from the plane, and thick black smoke emanating from the wing.
The incident forced the pilot to attempt an emergency landing back in Denver just 20 minutes after take-off, at around 1.30pm local time.
Video recorded aboard Flight UA328 captured the moment it touched back down on the runway safely, prompting the cabin to erupt in applause and cheers of relief.
Remarkably, there were no injuries reported either on board the flight or on the ground.
The plane had just taken off from Maastricht airport around 4.10pm Sunday when a fire started in one of its engines, causing metal to fall from the sky
Terrified United Airlines passengers clapped in relief as their flight touched down safely in Denver on Saturday after suffering catastrophic engine failure
Video recorded by passengers aboard Flight UA328, which was carrying 231 travelers and 10 crew members, shows the engine on fire
Aviation safety experts said the plane, a 26-year-old 777, appeared to have suffered an uncontained and catastrophic engine failure.
Such an event is extremely rare and happens when huge spinning discs inside the engine suffer some sort of failure and breach the armored casing around the engine that is designed to contain the damage, said John Cox, an aviation safety expert and retired airline pilot who runs an aviation safety consulting firm called Safety Operating Systems.
Pilots practice how to deal with such an event frequently and would have immediately shut off anything flammable in the engine, including fuel and hydraulic fluid, using a single switch.
In a statement to DailyMail.com, United said: ‘Flight 328 from Denver to Honolulu experienced an engine failure shortly after departure, returned safely to Denver and was met by emergency crews as a precaution.
‘We ensured our customers were comfortable and cared for at Denver International Airport while we prepared another aircraft to get them to Honolulu.
‘Those who did not wish to travel with us were provided hotel accommodations. We will continue to work with federal agencies investigating this incident.’
The airline declined to identify the pilot when pressed by DailyMail.com. Boeing, meanwhile, said its technical advisers would assist the NTSB with its investigation.
Former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall called the incident another example of ‘cracks in our culture in aviation safety (that) need to be addressed’.
Hall, who was on the board from 1994 to 2001, has criticized the FAA over the past decade as ‘drifting toward letting the manufacturers provide the aviation oversight that the public was paying for’.
Prior to landing safely, large chunks of debris had fallen from the plane on the Denver suburbs below, narrowly missing homes and other buildings.
Flames could be seen coming from the engine of the plane after it exploded at 15,000 feet
The Broomfield Police Department posted photos on Twitter showing large, circular pieces of debris leaning against a house in the suburb about 25 miles north of Denver
Cops in Broomfield responded to reports of objects falling from the sky on Saturday afternoon and saw huge metal objects in front lawns
Passenger David Delucia recalled for the Denver Post how he grabbed his wife’s hand after hearing the explosion, telling her: ‘We’re done for.’
‘The plane started shaking violently, and we lost altitude and we started going down,’ Delucia, who sat directly across the aisle from the side with the failed engine, said.
‘When it initially happened, I thought we were done. I thought we were going down. I thought we were going to die at one point,’ he said, adding that he and his wife took their wallets containing their driver’s licences and put them in their pockets so that ‘in case we did go down, we could be ID’d’.
In an audio recording, a United pilot could be heard making a mayday call to air traffic control.
‘Mayday, aircraft just experienced engine failure, need to turn immediately,’ the pilot said, according to audio from the monitoring website liveatc.net that was reviewed by Reuters.
Denver resident Kirby Klements was inside his home with his wife when they heard a huge booming sound.
A few seconds later, the couple saw a massive piece of debris fly past their window and into the bed of Klements’ truck, crushing the cab and pushing the vehicle into the dirt.
This image provided by KCNC-TV in Denver shows the damage done when debris fell through the roof and into the kitchen of a home in Broomfield, Colorado on Saturday
Pieces of the aircraft landed on a football field as seen in the above image posted to Twitter by a local resident in Broomfield
Police in Broomfield released this photo showing debris from the United Airlines aircraft strewn across a football field
He estimated the circular engine cowling at 15 feet in diameter. Fine pieces of the fiberglass insulation used in the airplane engine fell from the sky ‘like ash’ for about 10 minutes, he said, and several large chunks of insulation landed in his backyard.
‘If it had been 10 feet different, it would have landed right on top of the house,’ he said in a phone interview with AP. ‘And if anyone had been in the truck, they would have been dead.’
The Broomfield Police Department posted photos on Twitter showing large, circular pieces of debris leaning against a house in the suburb about 25 miles north of Denver.
Additional debris was found scattered across turf field at Commons Park as well as the Northmoor and Red Leaf sections of Broomfield.
The department has urged locals not to move any debris they might find, saying they want ‘all debris to remain in place for investigation’.
Broomfield is a suburb about 25 miles north of Denver. Tyler Thal, who lives in the area, said he was out for a walk with his family when he noticed a large commercial plane flying unusually low and took his phone out to film it.
‘While I was looking at it, I saw an explosion and then the cloud of smoke and some debris falling from it,’ he said.
‘It was just like a speck in the sky and as I’m watching that, I’m telling my family what I just saw and then we heard the explosion. The plane just kind of continued on and we didn’t see it after that.’
The image above shows smoke emanating from the damaged engine on the left
One local resident, Kieran Cain, told CNN he was with his children at a nearby elementary school when the aircraft flew over. Seconds later, they heard a loud explosion.
‘We saw it go over, we heard the big explosion, we looked up, there was black smoke in the sky,’ Cain told CNN.
‘Debris started raining down, which you know, sort of looked like it was floating down and not very heavy, but actually now looking at it, It’s giant metal pieces all over the place.
‘I was surprised that the plane sort of continued on uninterrupted, without really altering its trajectory or doing anything,’ he said.
‘It just kind of kept going the way it was going as if nothing happened.’
One man who said he was a passenger on the flight tweeted: ‘I’m on #UA328, pilots did an amazing job because it was loud, shaking, and scary as hell back here. Fire crews have us out on the tarmac.’
Another passenger, Travis Loock, told CNN that he heard a boom about 20 minutes into the flight.
‘There was a big boom and the kind of sound you don’t want to hear when you’re on the airplane,’ said Loock, who was flying with his wife.
‘And I instantly put my shade up, and I was pretty frightened to see… the engine on my side was missing.’
‘We were just glad we weren’t over the ocean, because that’s where we were heading,’ he said.
Loock told CNN that while fear was palpable on board, everyone was ‘very calm’ when the explosion took place.
‘A lot of people couldn’t see the engine on that side, right, so I was a little more freaked out because I could see it, and I knew that was not right,’ he said.