PLANE SCARY
UK bans all Boeing 777 planes with same engine as United Airlines aircraft that caught fire at weekend
ALL Boeing 777s with the same engine as that of the plane which caught fire over the weekend will be temporarily banned from entering UK airspace, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said.
An "engine failure" explosion on a United Airlines plane caused the flight to drop parts onto homes in Colorado on Saturday.
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Any Boeing 777s with a Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engines will be grounded until further notice.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority said the engine was not used on models operated by UK airlines.
A statement said: "After the Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engine incident on a Boeing 777 aircraft, we have suspended this configuration's use in UK airspace. It is not used by any UK airlines. It is operated by airlines in the USA, Japan and South Korea where authorities have also stopped its use."
The temporary ban follows the explosion on the United Airlines plane carrying 231 passengers and 10 crew members on Saturday which caused debris to drop onto a number of neighbourhoods.
"Flight 328 from Denver to Honolulu experienced an engine failure shortly after departure, returned safely to Denver and was met by emergency crews as a precaution," the statement from read.
"There are no reported injuries onboard, and we will share more information as it becomes available."
The mayday call from the features the pilot requesting the place must "need a turn immediately. Mayday, mayday."
David Delucia, who was traveling on the flight, said: "When it initially happened, I thought we were done. I thought we were going down."
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United Airlines has already grounded their 777 planes, affecting 24 aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration released a statement on Sunday regarding Saturday's plane engine failure, adding the FAA would be stepping up measures to prevent such an incident from occurring again.
In a statement of their own, United Airlines said it was voluntarily complying with the FAA's guidelines to remove all 777 planes from service.
"We are voluntarily & temporarily removing 24 Boeing 777 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engines from our schedule," the airline .
"We will continue to work closely with regulators to determine any additional steps and expect only a small number of customers to be inconvenienced."
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement Sunday that based on an initial review of safety data, inspectors concluded that the inspection interval should be stepped up for the hollow fan blades that are unique to this model of engine, used solely on Boeing 777 airplanes.
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The emergency landing this past weekend is the latest trouble for Boeing, which saw its 737 Max planes grounded for more than a year after two deadly crashes in 2019 and is suffering amid the huge reduction in air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Max planes began returning to the skies late last year a huge boost for the aircraft maker, which lost billions during the grounding because it has been unable to deliver new planes to customers.
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A child and an elderly woman were also injured on Saturday after the engine of a plane burst into flames shortly after taking off in the Netherlands.
The southern Dutch town of Meerssen was showered in debris on Saturday afternoon after the incident involving a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane.
Flight UA 328 mayday call after plane engine EXPLODED over Denver – before miraculously landing with NO injuries
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