Statistically, commercial air travel has proved to be extremely safe, and episodes like the one seen over Colorado on February 20 are rare. An initial investigation pointed to metal fatigue in the engine’s fan blades, and the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday said Pratt & Whitney engines on Boeing 777s must be inspected before the planes return to the sky. On February 21, United, the only US carrier whose 777s are powered by that particular Pratt & Whitney engine, ordered all of them thoroughly checked before they could fly again, while Boeing said that 128 of its 777 jetliners worldwide should be temporarily taken out of service. (That plane, a Boeing 737, was equipped with an engine manufactured by CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines.) And then there were the two devastating crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes, which killed a total of 346 people and caused the entire fleet to be grounded for nearly two years.Īlso read: Boeing grounds 777s after engine fire in Colorado Other aircraft have had major incidents: The midair engine explosion of a Southwest jet in 2018 caused the death of a passenger, Jennifer Riordan. Both of those planes were also Boeing 777-200s equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines. So did a Japan Airlines flight heading from Tokyo to Okinawa in 2020. In 2018, another United Airlines flight, also heading to Honolulu, experienced a nearly identical engine failure as the one seen over Colorado. The events in Colorado and the Netherlands were the latest in a string of dramatic high-altitude failures over the past few years. That plane’s engine, while different from the Boeing 777 in Colorado, was also manufactured by Pratt & Whitney, and it also caught fire and spewed metal parts before the plane made its own safe emergency landing.Īlso read: Boeing 777 with engine trouble makes emergency landing in MoscowĪnd Friday, a long-haul Boeing 777 carrying cargo and 25 people made an emergency landing in Moscow after an indicator warned of the possible failure of its General Electric engine. The plane, which had 231 passengers and 10 crew members on board, returned to Denver and landed safely.Īn eerily similar incident played out the same day in the Netherlands with a Boeing 747-400 cargo jet. Passengers captured video, much of it shared on social media, of the plane’s Pratt & Whitney engine, its cover ripped off, its turbine oscillating and in flames. Passengers on board a United Airlines flight from Denver to Honolulu had several moments of terror on February 20 when their plane, a Boeing 777-200, experienced a right-engine failure shortly after takeoff, causing a massive bang and sending debris raining down over a quiet Denver suburb.

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