The notification comes from the FAA and will affect roughly 352 engines administered by U.S. operators.

Following the fatal engine failure that led to the mid-air accident of Southwest Flight 1380 earlier this week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has demanded a massive engine inspection, CNBC reports.

The FAA has issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) on Friday, April 20, regarding CFM56-7B engines — the same engine type on the Boeing 737 airplane involved in the Southwest accident on Tuesday, April 17.

According to the directive, airline operators are required to perform an inspection of the CFM56-7B engine fan blades, which in the case of Flight 1380, exploded at 32,000 feet, killing one passenger and forcing the Southwest Airlines airplane to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

“We are issuing this [airworthiness directive] because we evaluated all the relevant information and determined the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop in other products of the same type design,” notified the FAA.

The EAD applies to certain CFM56-7B engines, specifically those that have been used for more than 30,000 total cycles. A cycle is a unit measure for airplane use and runs from take-off to shut down after landing, CNBC notes.

Furthermore, the directive states that operators must complete this verification within 20 days.

The EAD comes after the CFM56-7B engine manufacturer, CFM International, released a service bulletin calling for more rigid testing of this type of engine, the FAA explained.

The airline regulator also mentioned that data from the investigation on Boeing 737 engine failure factored into Friday’s emergency directive.

The CFM bulletin, also issued on Friday, recommends that the CFM56-7B fan blades be examined with an ultrasonic probe — a procedure that lasts for four hours per each of the airplanes’ engines and which can be performed without removing the engines from the aircrafts’ wings.

The reason why CFM is suggesting that operators conduct the CFM56-7B engine verifications via ultrasonic probe is that the fan blades might hide tiny cracks, which would not be detected with the naked eye.

According to CFM estimates, the inspection order will affect some 352 engines in the U.S. and 681 worldwide, specified the FAA.

In addition, the engine manufacturer also recommends that operators verify the CFM56-7B engines with about 20,000 cycles as well. This will be applicable to an estimated 2,500 engines, states CFM.

The CFM56-7B engine is one of the most widely used airplane engines worldwide. Tuesday’s tragic failure of the popular engine model resulted in the first passenger fatality on a U.S. airline in the last nine years and the first accident-related passenger death ever recorded in the history of Southwest Airlines. </s> By Simon Hradecky, created Saturday, Apr 21st 2018 04:46Z, last updated Friday, May 4th 2018 13:25Z The FAA have released Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) 2018-09-51 concerning all CFM56-7B engines with 30,000 or more flight cycles (estimated 352 engines within the USA and 681 engines globally). The FAA reasons:



This emergency AD was prompted by a recent event in which a Boeing Model 737-700 airplane powered by CFM56-7B model engines experienced an engine failure due to a fractured fan blade, resulting in the engine inlet cowl disintegrating. Debris penetrated the fuselage causing a loss of pressurization and prompting an emergency descent. Although the airplane landed safely, there was one passenger fatality. Fan blade failure due to cracking, if not addressed, could result in an engine in-flight shutdown (IFSD), uncontained release of debris, damage to the engine, damage to the airplane, and possible airplane decompression.



See Accident: Southwest B737 near Philadelphia on Apr 17th 2018, uncontained engine failure takes out passenger window for details of the accident referenced by the EAD.



The FAA reports that CFM Service Bulletin CFM56-7B S/B 72-1033 dated April 20 (SB) 2018 provides action for engines with fewer than 30,000 flight cycles, however, the EAD affects engines with 30,000 or more flight cycles only. In addition the SB requires reporting of the inspection results, the EAD does not require reporting. Otherwise there is no difference between the SB and the EAD.



The EAD requires all 24 fan blade dovetail concave and convex sides of CFM56-7B engines to undergo ultrasonic inspection to detect cracking within 20 days. If any unservicable fan blades are being found, they are to be removed from service before further flight.



On May 2nd 2018 the FAA released another Airworthiness Directive 2018-09-10 that based on the same reasoning as the previously released EAD introduces a more generic inspection scheme requiring inspections of fan blades as follows:



(1) Perform an ultrasonic inspection (USI) or eddy current inspection (ECI) of the concave and convex sides of the fan blade dovetail as follows:



(i) Perform an initial inspection on each fan blade before the fan blade accumulates 20,000 cycles since new, or within 113 days from the effective date of this AD, whichever occurs later.



(ii) If cycles since new on a fan blade is unknown, perform an initial inspection within 113 days from the effective date of this AD.



(iii) Thereafter, repeat this inspection no later than 3,000 cycles since the last inspection.



(iv) Use the Accomplishment Instructions, paragraphs 3.A.(3)(a) through (i), of CFM Service Bulletin (SB) CFM56-7B S/B 72-1033, dated April 20, 2018, to perform a USI or use the instructions in subtask 72-21-01-220-091, of task 72-21-01-200-001, from CFM CFM56-7B Engine Shop Manual, Revision 57, dated January 15, 2018, to perform an ECI.



(2) If any unserviceable indication, as specified in the applicable service information in paragraph (g)(1)(iv) of this AD, is found during the inspections required by paragraph (g) of this AD, replace the fan blade before further flight with a part eligible for installation.



The FAA estimates that 3,716 engines under US registration will be affected by the AD. </s> The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday ordered airlines to inspect the fan blades of some engines of the same type that exploded on a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this week. One passenger was killed after she was partially sucked through a window that blew open in the blast when a fan blade on one of the Boeing 737's engines broke loose when the plane was above 30,000 feet.

It was the first passenger death on a U.S. airline since 2009 and the first ever passenger fatality due to an accident or incident in Southwest's history.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the "emergency" order was based on a service bulletin, also issued Friday from the engine's manufacturer, CFM International, calling for more stringent testing of the CFM56-7B engine, and an investigation into the deadly engine failure on Southwest Flight 1380, the airline regulator said.

Under the FAA's order some engines will have to be inspected within 20 days.

The engine type is one of the most commonly used around the world. Friday's order will affect some 352 engines in the U.S. and 681 worldwide.

CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric and France's Safran Aircraft Engines, said engine inspectors can examine the engine while it is still on the wing using an ultrasonic probe. Tiny cracks in the engine's fan blades may not be visible to the naked eye. That test takes about four hours per engine, CFM said.

CFM also recommended that engines with about 20,000 cycles, which it estimates applies to 2,500 engines.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) that requires operators to inspect fan blades on certain CFM56-7B engines within 20 days. The directive is based on a CFM International Service Bulletin issued today and on information gathered from the investigation of Tuesday's Southwest Airlines engine failure. The inspection requirement applies to CFM56-7B engines. Specifically, engines with more than 30,000 total cycles from new must undergo inspections within 20 days. The EAD becomes effective upon publication. The engine manufacturer estimates today's corrective action affects 352 engines in the U.S. and 681 engines worldwide.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates. </s> • Europe orders emergency inspections of the type of engine that malfunctioned on a Southwest Airlines flight this week.
• Planes with the CFM56-7B engine must be inspected in the next 20 days if the engine has been in service for around 20 years.
• Some 352 engines in the US and 681 engines worldwide are eligible for emergency inspections.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has joined US authorities in ordering an emergency inspection of the type of engine that malfunctioned on a Southwest Airlines flight this week to deadly effect.

In a statement on Saturday, EASA ordered investigations of CFM56-7B enginesafter a fan blade on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 snapped off mid-flight, spraying shrapnel that punctured the aircraft's fuselage causing depressurization. Passenger Jennifer Riordan was killed.

It is an expansion of a previous EASA directive in 2016, issued for inspections on the same engine. Engines that contain fan blades that have completed more than 30,000 "cycles," or have been in service for around 20 years, must be inspected in the next 20 days, according to EASA.

Similar tests are being carried out in the US. America's Federal Aviation Administration said it expects 352 engines in the US and 681 engines worldwide to be eligible for emergency inspections.

The CFM56-7B debuted in 1997 and currently powers more than 6,700 planes in the world. It is the product of a 40-year-old joint venture between GE Aviation and France's Safran Aircraft Engines called CFM International.

Several major airline officials said the order will primarily impact airlines with higher utilisation of aircraft covering shorter routes like Southwest, according to Reuters. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jet engine manufacturer CFM International Inc said on Thursday airlines have inspected more than half of nearly 700 CFM engines subject to an emergency order issued late Friday by U.S. and European regulators.

The inspections cover engines like the one involved in a fatal Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N) engine blowout last week. The directives for inspections by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency suggested rising concerns about CFM56-7B engines, built by the joint venture of General Electric Co (GE.N) and France’s Safran SA (SAF.PA). The same type of engine had a similar failure in 2016.

Ultrasonic inspections on fan blades that have been used in more than 30,000 cycles, or in service for about 20 years, will be required by May 10, the agencies said. A cycle includes one take-off and landing — and 150 had already been inspected prior to Friday’s order.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based CFM International said airline operators have completed more than 60 percent of mandated ultrasonic inspections on CFM56-7B engines with more than 30,000 cycles.

As soon as next week, the FAA was expected to finalize a separate directive on CFM56-7B engines it had proposed in August covering a different set of engines, two officials briefed on the matter said.

The engine explosion on Southwest Airlines flight 1380 in Pennsylvania was caused by a fan blade that broke off, the FAA said. The blast shattered a window, killing a passenger, the first U.S. passenger airline fatality since 2009.

The CFM56-7B engine powers the Boeing Next-Generation 737. Approximately 14,000 CFM56-7B engines are operated by 60 companies worldwide.

CFM said GE and Safran Aircraft Engines are supporting airlines with a team of 500 experts worldwide to complete the inspections quickly and help to minimize operational disruption. Southwest has said it is cancelling some flights as a result of inspections.

CFM also recommends completing inspections of fan blades with more than 20,000 cycles by the end of August, and inspections to all other fan blades by the time they reach 20,000 cycles. After first inspection, operators are recommended to repeat the inspection every 3,000 cycles, typically about two years in airline service. Those inspections for fan blades with 20,000 cycles will affect an additional 2,500 engines by August.

The engine that blew apart on last week’s Southwest flight would have been affected by Friday’s inspection order, since the company said it had 40,000 cycles. </s> Aero-engine maker CFM International said airlines are “aggressively responding” to safety regulator directives to inspect CFM56-7B engines, the type that exploded on a Southwest Airlines aircraft last week, causing one fatality.

Last Friday’s emergency airworthiness directives from the US Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation Safety Agency require ultrasonic inspections on CFM56-7B engine blades with more than 30,000 cycles since new. A cycle comprises start up, take-off, landing and shut down.

CFM said more than 60 percent of the 680 engines worldwide that are subject to the directives have been inspected. The remaining inspections must be completed by May 10.

The company is also recommending that operators inspect fan blades with more than 20,000 cycles by the end of August, and inspections of all other fan blades should be carried out when they reach 20,000 cycles.

CFM says there are around 14,000 CFM56-7B engines in operation around the world.

Southwest Airlines flight WN1380, a Boeing 737-700 carrying 143 passengers and five crew, was on a flight from New York’s La Guardia airport to Dallas Love Field when the left engine exploded, sending parts into the aircraft, causing cabin depressurisation.

One passenger died after she was partially sucked out of the cabin as it depressurised. Passengers were able to grab the woman and pull her back into the cabin, but she died of her injuries. </s> The National Transportation Safety Board will likely take more than a year to determine what caused the catastrophic failure of an engine on Southwest Flight 1380, rupturing the cabin and killing a passenger. No surprise, then, that nobody’s waiting for the final verdict to try to stop it from happening again.

The NTSB says the engine failed after one of the blades that make up the fan at the front of the CMF56-7B engine sheared off, at 32,500 feet. Investigators found signs of metal fatigue in the blade’s stumpy remains. Here, “fatigue” essentially means weakening—a possible result of subjecting metal alloys to the extreme temperatures and heavy loads that come with every flight. The regular expansion and contraction of the metal can exaggerate the smallest defects, like micro fractures, to the point where they become dangerous.

So the CMF56-7B, made by CFM International (a joint venture between Safran and General Electric) and bolted to 6,700 planes around the world, is getting a lot of extra attention. Southwest crews will spend the next 30 days inspecting hundreds of its CFM engines, according to Reuters. And the Federal Aviation Administration says it will issue an airworthiness directive within the next two weeks, requiring all airlines run an ultrasonic inspection of all 24 fan blades on every CFM56-7B they use, after it has been through a certain number of takeoff and landing cycles.

The ultrasonic bit is important, since the fatigue on the blown engine was on the interior of the snapped blade, according to the NTSB, where it would have been hard to spot in a visual inspection.

Much like a doctor inspecting an expectant mother, technicians go back and forth over each blade with a hand-held sensor, pulsing ultrasonic waves through the metal, looking for defects. The results don’t came back as an image, but more like an EKG graph, says Antonios Kontsos, an expert in structural fatigue and failure detection at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Cracks in the metal show up as an abnormal signal. It’s laborious, time-consuming, and the best way to see inside these all-important metals.

The FAA and NTSB are already investigating another Southwest flight, in August 2016, where this type of engine failed in midair. The plane made an emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, without injuries. Afterward, the FAA proposed voluntary airworthiness inspections for the CMF56-7B. This time around, it’s making them mandatory.

Still, modern jet engines are a paragon of reliability. Failures—ie, In-flight Engine Shutdowns—cause less than 3 percent of flight diversions. That’s largely because airlines have robust inspection and maintenance programs. As engines cost up to $30 million and are the main thing keeping air between the plane and the ground, they’re worth looking after. KLM, for example, says the CF6-80E, which powers its Airbus A330s, needs major maintenance about every 7,300 takeoff and landing cycles, and minor maintenance every 200 to 400 cycles.

At Delta’s Atlanta maintenance facility—which is the size of 47 football fields—techs dismantle entire engines. They clean and inspect every part, from the albatross-like fan blades to the tiny component inside the fuel injector. It takes them 50 to 80 days to do that, replacing the worn out bits and putting everything back together. They then haul the refreshed engine into a bunker-like concrete cell, where they run it at speed to verify it is indeed good as new. Only then do they bolt the thing back onto a jet wing and let it return to work.

Long before they get to fly, new engine types go through a bruising array of tests—ingesting water, ice, sand from all over the world, and dead chickens. And when they are in service, airlines collect reams of data on vibration, temperature, and speed, hoping to spot problems before they become catastrophic.

In the future, a new generation of ultrasound and infrared sensors, built into the engines, could detect structural defects before they present any danger at all. “It would be a paradigm shift, integrating diagnostics and prognostics,” says Kontsos, who is working with military and commercial operators to develop such systems. “You could infer the engine health as you fly or operate the device.”

As with all such aviation advances, it will be years, at a minimum, before such sensors can make their way onto real, people-packed airplanes. Until then, we’ll have to rely on the men and women building—and rebuilding—those engines to keep us in the air.
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• A day with the zombies who help airports practice plane crashes </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and European regulators on Friday will announce they are requiring emergency inspections within the next 20 days of fan blades of nearly 700 CFM56-7B engines worldwide after the crash this week of a Southwest Airlines jet that killed one person, two sources said.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and European regulators will announce they are mandating the inspections that were recommended by engine maker CFM International, a partnership of France’s Safran SA and General Electric Co, in a bulletin earlier Friday. The emergency inspections apply to 681 engines worldwide, including 352 in the United States. CFM said more than 150 have already been inspected. </s> Southwest Airlines says it has canceled roughly 1 percent of its scheduled flights as it carries out inspections prompted by an engine failure that led to a passenger’s death last week. About 40 flights were affected.

The affected Southwest Boeing 737 took off Tuesday morning from New York, headed for Dallas. About 20 minutes into the flight, at about 32,500 feet, a fan blade broke off the engine and shrapnel shattered a window.

Jennifer Riordan, 43, and a mother of two, was almost sucked out of the broken window and pulled back inside by fellow passengers. She died from blunt force trauma at a hospital after the plane’s emergency landing in Philadelphia.

After the incident, Southwest Airlines said it was accelerating its existing engine inspection program relating to the CFM56 engine family “out of an abundance of caution” over the following 30 days.

In a statement Sunday it said that its flight cancellations had been minimal.

“We have minimized flight disruptions this past week through actions such as proactive aircraft routings to cover open trips, performing inspections overnight, and utilizing spare aircraft, when available. On Sunday, we only canceled about 40 flights due to fan blade inspections out of a planned schedule of almost 4,000 flights,” the airline said.

Southwest said its cancellations were the result of a “voluntary, accelerated engine fan blade inspection program” rather than inspections ordered by US and European aviation authorities. It recommended customers check their flights’ status on its website.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) each issued an emergency airworthiness directive on Friday requiring airlines to perform an ultrasonic inspection of certain CFM56-7B engines within 20 days.

The FAA and EASA directives came on the same day that the engine manufacturer, CFM International, issued a service bulletin recommending the CFM56-7B engine be inspected more frequently.

“CFM recommends ultrasonic inspections within the next 20 days to fan blades of CFM56-7B engines with more than 30,000 cycles since new,” it said. “Also, it recommends inspections by the end of August for fan blades with 20,000 cycles, and inspections to all other fan blades when they reach 20,000 cycles.”

After reaching a certain age, the engines should be inspected approximately every two years, the manufacturer said.

According to CFM International, about 680 engines will be impacted by the order to inspect engines with more than 30,000 cycles within the next 20 days. More than 150 of those have already been checked by operators, it said.

Another 2,500 engines will be impacted by the recommendation to inspect fan blades with 20,000 cycles by the end of August, CFM International said. A jet engine cycle comprises an engine start, takeoff and landing, and full shut down.

“The inspection, conducted on-wing with an ultrasonic probe along the surface of the fan blade, takes about four hours per engine,” the manufacturer said.

US federal safety investigators have said the naked eye cannot detect the cracks and signs of metal fatigue that doomed the engine on Southwest Flight 1380.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration issues an emergency Airworthiness Directive for CFM56-7B jet engines. The EAD expands on previous orders requiring ultrasonic testing to search for metal fatigue in fan blades. It mandates testing on engines that have reached 30,000+ flights, believed to cover 352 US engines and 681 engines worldwide.