Updated February 22nd, 2021 at 11:37 IST
United Airlines 'temporarily' removes 24 Boeing 777 planes after Denver incident
After debris from a United Airlines plane fell onto Denver suburbs, the company announced that it is removing all of its Boeing 777 planes currently in service.
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After debris from a United Airlines plane fell onto Denver suburbs, the company announced that it is 'temporarily' removing all of its Boeing 777 planes currently in service that are powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engines. While taking to Twitter, the airlines said it was immediately removing the planes “out of an abundance of caution”. The announcement came after the Federal Aviation Administration called for stepped-up inspections. It is worth noting that the 24 aircraft are part of the 52 777s in the United fleet and the other 28 remain in storage.
We are voluntarily & temporarily removing 24 Boeing 777 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engines from our schedule. We will continue to work closely with regulators to determine any additional steps and expect only a small number of customers to be inconvenienced.
— United Airlines (@united)
In a series of tweets, the airlines also added, “Safety remains our highest priority, which is why our crews take part in extensive training to prepare and manage incidents like UA328. We remain proud of our employees' professionalism and steadfast dedication to safety every day”.
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‘Voluntary and temporary’
The move is “voluntary and temporary” and should disrupt only a “small number of customers”. It came after the FAA issued an emergency order saying it would be stepping up inspections of Boeing 777 airplanes equipped with certain Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines. According to CNN, the FAA Administrator Steve Dickson had said that officials reviewed all available safety data after the United Airlines flight was forced to return to Denver International Airport after it suffered an engine failure shortly after takeoff, causing debris to fall in greater Denver.
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Flight 328 was flying from Denver to Honolulu when the incident occurred. United Airlines in a separate statement said that there were 231 passengers and 10 crew members on board when this incident occurred. All passengers were to be rebooked on a new flight to Hawaii, the airline said.
On Sunday, the National Transportation Safety Board also said that an examination of the PW4077 engine from United Airlines Flight showed that two fan blades were fractured and the remaining blades exhibited damage “to the tips and leading edges”. However, the officials also added that these are preliminary findings and should not be taken as conclusive of what went wrong. Experts believe that a fan blade in the engine of the Boeing 777 that experienced a catastrophic engine failure came off and took out another blade.
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Published February 22nd, 2021 at 11:39 IST