Afinal não foi só o avião da TAAG

Board Finds What Marred Test of a 787

By BLOOMBERG NEWS 

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday that a fan shaft fractured inside a General Electric jet engine on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner during a test run late last month, causing it to eject hot shards of metal.

The board said it was continuing to look for the cause of the fracture. Scientists from Boeing, G.E. and the part's supplier, the IHI Corporation of Japan, were assisting in the inquiry, Rick Kennedy, a G.E. spokesman, said.

The plane, intended for delivery to Air India, was preparing for its first flight near Boeing's North Charleston, S.C., factory on July 28 when the incident occurred. The debris ignited a brush fire and shut the Charleston International Airport for an hour.

"That's an extremely rare problem," said Hans J. Weber of Tecop International, an aviation consulting firm. "There will be a lot of pressure on G.E. to come up with a solid explanation very quickly of what the problem is, what they have to do to make sure it doesn't happen again, and why this is a unique event and the other engines wouldn't be affected."

The engine was sent to G.E.'s facilities in Ohio to be examined.

"If it was a manufacturing error, it can be remedied; but if it's a design problem, that's a little more integral to the engine," said William C. Storey Jr., president of the Teal Group, an aerospace consulting firm.

For the Dreamliner, Boeing offers engines by either G.E. or Rolls-Royce.

The Dreamliner is the first airliner to be built out of composite materials, helping it use less fuel and fly farther than other jets its size. It entered service late last year and is used so far by All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines.

No one was hurt in the incident, and other planes using similar engines were allowed to continue operating. There are 80 of the G.E. engines in service.