SA Express CRJ7 at East London on May 11th 2018, engine shut down in flight
Last Update: August 24, 2018 / 14:29:20 GMT/Zulu time
Incident Facts
Date of incident
May 11, 2018
Classification
Incident
Airline
SA Express
Flight number
XZ-1412
Departure
East London, South Africa
Destination
Johannesburg, South Africa
Aircraft Registration
ZS-NBG
Aircraft Type
Canadair CRJ-700
ICAO Type Designator
CRJ7
Passengers reported the aircraft had departed with a delay of about 100 minutes after the crew attempted to start the engine several times. The captain announced that a circuit breaker kept popping, maintenance was going to look after the issue. The captain subsequently announced the issue was fixed, the engine was started and the aircraft departed, however, 5 minutes after takeoff a loud bang was heard, the aircraft was rattling. The crew turned the aircraft out over the sea, announced that they had lost an engine and landed back about 20 minutes after departure.
On Aug 24th 2018 South Africa's CAA (SACAA) released their preliminary report reporting all stage 1 high pressure turbine blades of the left hand engine (CF34) had fractured at about mid span of the air foils. Blistered shroud segments showed extreme heat and impact damage. Several stage 2 high pressure turbine blades were fractured by impact damage. The preliminary report seems to contradict itself describing the damage to the low pressure turbine (in 3.8 reporting all rotor blades of the low pressure turbine had been destroyed, in 3.9 however reporting the last stage rotor blades had remained undamaged):
3.8 On the low-pressure turbine (LPT) stator vanes and blades, the destruction and debris field in the LPT were noticeable, with complete destruction of all LPT rotor blades and stator vanes.
3.9 The on-site investigation revealed that there was debris of the blades inside the exhaust frame and limited damage to the tips of the stator vanes of the LPT last stage. The rotor blades of the LPT final stage were found still intact, with no signs of damage.
The SACAA reported the aircraft was climbing through about 800 feet AGL when the crew felt vibrations and heard a loud bang. The crew identified the #1 engine had failed and performed the memory items for severe engine damage.
Incident Facts
Date of incident
May 11, 2018
Classification
Incident
Airline
SA Express
Flight number
XZ-1412
Departure
East London, South Africa
Destination
Johannesburg, South Africa
Aircraft Registration
ZS-NBG
Aircraft Type
Canadair CRJ-700
ICAO Type Designator
CRJ7
This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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