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Airlines pull suspect engines
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April 7, 1998: 6:41 p.m. ET
Eight Pratt & Whitney engines remove after service defect warning
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Eight jet engines have been removed from commercial air service following a warning of suspected defective turbine blades, aircraft engine maker Pratt & Whitney said Tuesday.
The removal follows a Pratt & Whitney alert to 15 airlines that it had improperly serviced up to 8,200 blades. The engine maker urged the airlines to remove the engines from service.
"A handful (of the blades) -- I don't have an exact number -- got installed in eight engines and those were very quickly identified," said Pratt spokesman Mark Sullivan.
Pratt alerted the airlines, including UAL Corp.'s United (UAL), Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Northwest Airlines (NWAC), in a March 20 service bulletin that an improper cleaning of the high-pressure turbine blades could make them prone to microscopic cracking.
In a worst-case scenario, that could cause what Pratt called an "inflight shutdown."
Federal Aviation Adminstration spokeswoman Kathryn Creedy said the agency has been investigating the matter for two months, said it would only lead to "normal" inflight shutdown - not a major type of engine failure.
Sullivan said only eight engines with defective blades were used in commercial service. The remainder of the blades, he said, were either in inventory or on engines not currently in use and which are now marked for destruction.
Delta and United both said they had removed the blades when they were alerted to the problem by Pratt in March.
The engines implicated in the Pratt bulletin are used on such popular commercial aircraft as Boeing Co.'s 747 jumbo jet, its 777, 767 and 757 models, and on Airbus Industries' A300, A310, A320 and A330 jets.
Pratt attributed the problem to improper calibration of a machine that uses ultrasonic waves to strip grease from the blades. As a result, the cleaning was "overaggressive," leaving the blades vulnerable to "high cycle fatigue cracks."
The service bulletin is thought to be one of the first by an engine maker in recent years urging an airline to take its aircraft out of service due to maintenance problems.
Plane maker Boeing Co. (BA) says engine malfunction has been the main cause of at least seven fatal commercial airplane crashes since 1989.
The stock of United Technologies (UTX), which is the parent of Pratt, fell 1-9/16 to 95- 13/16 late Tuesday morning. 
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Pratt & Whitney
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