The company said it supported the decisions made by the Japanese and US air safety bodies to “suspend operations of 777 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engine”, while UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he is banning 777s with the affected engine from British skies.
Boeing’s response contrasts with its efforts after the Lion Air crash in Indonesia to keep the bestselling 737 Max in the air.
One is about something Boeing made. The other isn’t.
Not only don’t they make the engines they don’t even sell them. Airlines and fleet owners negotiate directly with the engine manufacturers to buy/lease the engines and their ongoing maintenance rates. Boeing’s involvement is to build the plane to fit whichever engine manufacturer the customer chooses.
P&W engines seem very dodgy. I remember the Lauda Air crash in 1991 was caused by the P&W engine suddenly going into reverse on its own.
‘P&W engines seem very dodgy’
I wouldn’t buy anything from a firm with the word prat in its name!
They didn’t build the engine, but the plane is built to fit the engine. You can’t just swap in the alternative RR or GE engine. While the fault is probably due to the engine design, construction or maintenance, it could be down to the specific customisations to fit the engine. Unlikely, but not quite enough that Boeing can say that it is not their problem yet.
There are over 1,600 777s delivered, the number with these engines is ~70 in service and a further 60 stored (almost all with US or Japanese operators). Given the utilisation of wide bodied jets at present, it’s safe to say that grounding them is not a major inconvenience.
“I wouldn’t buy anything from a firm with the word prat in its name!”
Especially if you view it as Pratt ‘n’ Whitey: very unwoke.
737 Max was / is the future of Boeing
777 is a legacy product and virtually no one is dumb enough to buy it with P&W engines anyway – GE has won the race decisively.
Having seen them up close the GE90 is a bloody big engine, makes some of the older stuff look like toys
It was over a year from the end of the war to the Nuremberg trials. Whilst they weren’t show trials there was little doubt of the outcome for some of those charged so there was plenty of time to ensure someone trained was available.
It strikes me that negligence was more likely the cause.