A preliminary report released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board shows that the engine on an Atlas Air 747-8 cargo jet that caught fire last month during takeoff from Miami International Airport was inspected 4 days before the incident.
The crew of Atlas Air flight 3885 received a warning signal on its cockpit display of a fireplace on the No. 2 engine while climbing past 3,000 feet en path to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 18. The signal was followed by the fireplace bell sounding. The captain discharged a bottle of fireplace suppressant situated within the engine compartment that extinguished the fireplace and safely returned to Miami airport, in response to the agency’s report.
An inspection of the General Electric GEnx-2b67 engine revealed burn marks through a part of the thrust reverser fan wall, but there was no evidence of an uncontained engine failure, the NTSB said.
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The combustor diffuser nozzle case port borescope plug was not secured within the case and was found loose within the engine cowling. That finding is potentially significant because records show a third-party vendor performed a borescope nozzle inspection 4 days earlier, on Jan. 14, that required the removal of a borescope plug. The technician performing the work and an inspector initialed a piece card indicating the duty was accomplished in accordance with the instructions in the upkeep manual.
A borescope is a tool that enables an engine’s condition to be examined by checking its internal components. It has an extended, fiber-optic tube with a camera attached to 1 end that sends video back to a monitor.
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