Incident Overview

Date: Friday 2 June 2006
Aircraft Type: Boeing 767-223ER
Owner/operator: American Airlines
Registration Number: N330AA
Location: Los Angeles International Airport, CA (LAX) – ÿ United States of America
Phase of Flight: Standing
Status: Substantial, written off
Casualties: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 3
Component Affected: High pressure turbine (HPT) stage 1 disk.High pressure turbine (HPT) stage 1 disk.
Investigating Agency: NTSBNTSB
Category: Other
On October 26, 2018, an American Airlines Boeing 767 N330AA experienced a catastrophic event during a flight from New York-JFK to Los Angeles (LAX). During a step climb, the aircraft’s No. 1 engine suffered a significant malfunction, resulting in an uncontained rupture of the high pressure turbine (HPT) stage 1 disk. This resulted in extensive damage to the aircraft, including debris impacting adjacent runways and taxiways, fire, and significant structural damage to the left wing, fuselage, and tail section. The incident was attributed to a failure of the HPT stage 1 disk due to GE’s inadequate design, compounded by the FAA’s failure to enforce an accelerated inspection schedule following a previous CF6-80A HPT stage 1 disk failure and subsequent routine inspections.On October 26, 2018, an American Airlines Boeing 767 N330AA experienced a catastrophic event during a flight from New York-JFK to Los Angeles (LAX). During a step climb, the aircraft’s No. 1 engine suffered a significant malfunction, resulting in an uncontained rupture of the high pressure turbine (HPT) stage 1 disk. This resulted in extensive damage to the aircraft, including debris impacting adjacent runways and taxiways, fire, and significant structural damage to the left wing, fuselage, and tail section. The incident was attributed to a failure of the HPT stage 1 disk due to GE’s inadequate design, compounded by the FAA’s failure to enforce an accelerated inspection schedule following a previous CF6-80A HPT stage 1 disk failure and subsequent routine inspections.

Description

American Airlines Boeing 767 N330AA flew as flight 201 from New York-JFK (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX). During a step climb from FL360 to FL380 en route to LAX, the pilots noted that the No. 1 engine was lagging the right engine by about 2 percent. The flight landed at LAX at 09:37. After the passengers had disembarked, the plane was towed to hangar no. 2 and was parked outside. Maintenance personnel were going to conducting a ground run to troubleshoot the reported discrepancy. Several engine runups to maximum power were performed on both engines. Then they did two runups to max power of just the no. 1 engine. When retarding the throttle to idle, the engine experienced an uncontained rupture of the high pressure turbine (HPT) stage 1 disk. Debris punctured the fuselage and fell onto adjacent runway and taxiways. Runway 25R and Taxiways B and C were closed for several hours until the investigation and collection of the debris could be accomplished. The engine caught fire and the plane sustained significant damage to the left wing, fuselage, and tail section. PROBABLE CAUSE: “The HPT stage 1 disk failed from an intergranular fatigue crack because of GE’s inadequate design of the CF6-80 series HPT stage 1 disk. The inadequate design of the disk resulted in a high stress area in the blade slot bottom aft corner that was at or nearly at the material’s capability so that there was no damage tolerance such that a small dent could cause a crack to initiate and propagate to failure. Contributing to the disk’s failure was the FAA’s failure to mandate an accelerated inspection schedule after a previous CF6-80A uncontained HPT stage 1 disk failure had occurred and after other CF6-80A HPT disks had been found during routine overhaul to have cracks in the blade slot bottom aft corners.”

Source of Information

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/B762,_Los_Angeles_USA,_2006http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/B762,_Los_Angeles_USA,_2006

Primary Cause

Inadequate design of GE’s CF6-80 series HPT stage 1 disk, leading to high stress areas in the blade slot bottom aft corner, resulting in a critical intergranular fatigue crack. The FAA’s failure to mandate an accelerated inspection schedule further exacerbated the issue.Inadequate design of GE’s CF6-80 series HPT stage 1 disk, leading to high stress areas in the blade slot bottom aft corner, resulting in a critical intergranular fatigue crack. The FAA’s failure to mandate an accelerated inspection schedule further exacerbated the issue.

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