Specifically, it concerns some variants of the Pratt & Whitney PW-40xx engine (the affected model was a PW-4077). Japanese carriers also grounded their affected planes earlier, and so did United.<p>Japanese authorities issued a NOTAM requesting airlines not to fly the affected planes over its territory. The US FAA is about to issue an emergency directive soon but only expected to decrease the inspection intervals of the affected parts rather than ground the planes completely.<p>The Aviation Herald has all the updates: <a href="http://avherald.com/h?article=4e35503b" rel="nofollow">http://avherald.com/h?article=4e35503b</a>
According to the BBC article at <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56149894" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56149894</a>,
"Boeing has recommended grounding all 777 aircraft with the same type of engine". So this isn't just a few airlines or an individual country.
Technically they’re grounding the Pratt & Whitney engine model that happens to be attached to their aircraft.<p>When one buys a big jet you pick out what engine you want to buy and slap onto it. It’s a particular engine they’re concerned about, not the 777 airframe itself.
On the same day as the US incident there was a similar (but less spectacular) failure with the 747 in The Netherlands:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/22/dutch-investigate-boeing-747-after-engine-parts-drop-after-takeoff-netherlands" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/22/dutch-inves...</a>
I can't help finding this a bit ironic, given that the B777 is an amazingly safe airplane with only 8 hull losses out of over 1600 built (so less than 0.5%), and one of those hull losses was because an Asiana crew "landed" a fully functional 777 on a beautiful sunny day short of SFO RW 28 L [1].<p>The other 7 hull losses were<p>* a BA flight landing short of LHR due to iced up fuel [2],<p>* Emirates crash landing in Dubai due to a botched go-around [3], and<p>* two Malaysian Airlines flights that had nothing to do with the aircraft (the probable pilot suicide/mass murder of MH370, and MH17 shot down over the Crimean), and<p>* three aircraft burning out on the ground (EgyptAir, Singaporean Air, Ethiopian).<p>Amazingly, there were only 3 fatalities with the Asiana crash (two not wearing seatbelts, one run over by fire truck), 1 with the Emirates crash (firefighter, not passenger), and 0 with the BA accident.<p>Only the BA flight really revealed a problem with the aircraft which appears to have been fixed.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Flight_521" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Flight_521</a>
I asked my aircraft buddy about this. He mentioned that it wasn't a GE engine, and that he doesn't even know what his GE rep looks like because of how few issues they have. Must be a big issue with P&W engines.
"If it says Pratt and Whitney on the engine, it better say Martin-Baker on the seat!" -Unknown<p>(Martin-Baker is an ejection seat manufacturer.)
From another news article:<p>> <i>Dickson said that his team has 'reviewed all available safety data following yesterday's 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'.</i>
I wonder if this incident was the result of the plane being in storage for an extended amount of time and recently returning to service.<p>These Aircraft are designed to be in flight <i>constantly</i> maximizing revenue. With the pandemic grounding so many planes for such extended amounts of unplanned time, I wonder if we are beginning to see gaps in maintenance procedures for aircraft returning to service after extended downtime.