American B763 at New York on Feb 8th 2012, engine fire
Last Update: December 8, 2012 / 11:32:23 GMT/Zulu time
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Feb 8, 2012
Classification
Incident
Cause
Engine fire
Airline
American Airlines
Aircraft Type
Boeing 767-300
ICAO Type Designator
B763
The failure of the American Airlines aviation maintenance technicians to properly reassemble the two-piece bracket and spray shield on the integrated drive generator fuel-oil heat exchanger that caused a fuel leak that sprayed out and ignited on hot engine cases. Contributing to the cause of the fire was the 767 Aircraft Maintenance ManualÂ’s lack of any graphical or pictorial displays of the correct assembly of the two-piece bracket and spray shield.
The NTSB reported the aircraft was climbing through 9000 feet when the crew heard a bang immediately followed by a fire warning for the right hand engine. The engine was shut down, a first fire bottle was discharged into the engine. The crew declared emergency reporting a right hand engine fire indication. When the fire indication had not extinguished 30 seconds after discharging the first fire bottle, the second bottle was discharged, several seconds later the fire indication extinguished. The captain instructed the first officer, pilot flying, to continue flying the aircraft and assume communication with ATC while the captain and second first officer were running the checklists. The lead flight attendant was instructed to visually check the engine for any indications of fire, she reported she could not detect any indications of fire. The aircraft landed safely on runway 04R, fire services checked the right hand engine and confirmed there was no fire active. The aircraft taxied to the gate, where passengers disembarked normally.
The right hand engine had accumulated 81,234 hours and 13,042 flight cycles since new and 6,651 hours and 1,087 cycles since the last overhaul. The left side of the engine was found covered with soot while the right side generally was free of soot. Investigators inspected the engine when it was still installed, the engine was wet motored twice, each time fuel leaked out from under the spray shield on the forward fuel inlet end of the intgrated drive generator fuel-oil heat exchanger. Examination revealed of the forward end of that exchanger identified the original two piece bracket and spray shield, the bracket however was over the spray shield instead of the spray shield being over the bracket. When the exchanger was removed, all retaining bolts had the required torque. When the seal at the front end of the exchanger was removed, the O-ring at the front of the seal was missing about 0.9 inches of its arc, the rest of the O-ring as well as the aft O-ring were in good condition.
The engine's fuel flow transmitter had been replaced the previous night, maintenance also replaced the tube between the integrated drive generator fuel-oil heat exchanger and the fuel flow transmitter according to Airworthiness Directives.
The maintenance manual stated for the re-installation of the bracket and spray shield: "For reassembly, the instructions state to install the bracket and spray shield. But the instructions do not differentiate between the one-piece or two-piece configuration nor do they show any diagrams or pictures on how the two-piece bracket and spray shield should be assembled."
The NTSB released a safety recommendation as result of the investigation, the FAA have already proposed rulemaking to order the new one piece bracket and spray shield be installed on the engines.
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Feb 8, 2012
Classification
Incident
Cause
Engine fire
Airline
American Airlines
Aircraft Type
Boeing 767-300
ICAO Type Designator
B763
This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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