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Plane Catches Fire at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
Plane Catches Fire at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
Industry experts say the cause of the incident was the first of its kind.
The nearly catastrophic explosion of an engine that caused a fire on an American Airlines Boeing 767 just short of takeoff in Chicago on Oct. 28 occurred when a specific part that had never before failed broke into pieces.
The breakup of a heavy metal disk that rotates in the engine core reveals a new risk to airline passengers that, however rare, has already spurred a scramble by engine-maker General Electric and government safety agencies to find and fix the vulnerability.
"The risk will be eliminated," said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member with more than 40 years' experience in the aviation-safety industry. "Will it be eliminated before the next one? That's the real question. Everything relies upon the timeliness of the system to correct itself."
American Airlines Flight 383 to Miami was speeding down the runway at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago when the second-stage disk of the high-pressure turbine broke apart inside the right engine with a loud explosion that blew metal shrapnel out through the engine casing.
Hot metal ripped through the wing, igniting aviation fuel. In an update this month, the National Safety Board, often called the NTSB, described how the pilot aborted the takeoff just seconds before reaching a speed at which he would have had to leave the ground. Slamming on the brakes as the jet reached a speed of 154 miles per hour, he brought the plane to a halt within 25 seconds and 900 yards further down the runway.
Comment: Two planes catch fire in separate runway blazes at Chicago and Florida airports (VIDEOS)