United Airlines to suspend Boeing 777 aircrafts from service after Denver incident

An official announcement was made by the United Airlines that said that it is removing all of its Boeing 777 aircrafts from service that have been powered by the Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engines. The announcement came after the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered for inspections on the aircraft after a United Airlines flight had to return to the runway soon after the take-off as one of the engines had blown up.

The flight had taken off from the Denver International Airport and had suffered an engine failure shortly. The debris of the engine had fell at greater Denver. The incident happened on February 20, 2021. According to the initial inspection of the engine by Pratt & Whitney PW4077 it had shown that two of the fan blades were fractured and the remaining blades had damaged tips. The authorities say that there are some preliminary findings but that should not be considered as conclusive.

Investigating team had argued that a fan blade in the engine of the Boeing 777 was responsible for the catastrophic event. The blade had come off and had taken out another blade. Even the aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing has recommended to suspend the 777 aircrafts that are powered by the Pratt &Whitney engines. The airlines which are operating with the affected engines are the United Airlines, South Korea and Japan Airlines. The United Airlines is the only US operator that has such engines in its fleet.

Meanwhile the transportation ministry of Japan has also ordered to suspend all the operations of the Boeing 777 with Pratt & Whitney engines. Debris of the engine were found all over the backyards of people living in greater Denver. Reports have also said that the pilots remained calm and some of the passengers recorded the engine that had ripped off. The pilots and the crew were appreciated for handling the situation with great care.

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