Faulty disc causes fire

A report into an aborted take off and subsequent engine fire on a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport has been blamed on a weakness discovered in an alloy used in making a turbine disc 30 years ago, which fell apart.

Investigators looking into why 170 passengers and crew had to be evacuated from the Boeing 767-300 aircraft said that parts of the engine disc, made from an alloy called Inconel 718, were hurled up to half a mile from the aircraft.

The disk showed signs of fatigue despite having gone through only about 11,000 flights of its life-limit of 15,000.

As a result the engine manufacturers GE Aviation say there is also one other engine still in use that has a disc from the same batch of alloy and they are working with an unidentified airline to have it removed from service.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2016/11/07/ge-engine-flaw/93414946/