By Lisa Gordon | June 11, 2014 Estimated reading time 2 minutes, 4 seconds.
Honeywell Aerospace has issued a service bulletin to operators of newer TFE731 turbofan engines, which power a number of business jets, including the Bombardier Lear 75 and the Dassault Falcon 900LX.
Steve Brecken, director of global media and analyst relations at Honeywell, told Skies that the engine manufacturer has identified an issue with the turbine blades on “a small number of newer TFE731 engines with less than 250 hours of flight hours,” and has “established an aggressive recovery plan to identify and replace the affected blades.”
Wynne Powell, president and CEO of London Air Services in Vancouver, said the charter company’s five new Lear 75s have been flown to the Bombardier factory in Wichita, Kan., an authorized Honeywell service centre, where they are currently undergoing inspection to determine whether their engines are among the ones affected by the service bulletin.
“Bombardier contacted us and we discussed what we should do,” said Powell. “It’s early days yet, but we are very safety-conscious and chose to immediately fly them down last Friday (June 6) for inspection,” he added.
Powell said that having the company’s entire Lear 75 fleet grounded is obviously a concern from a business standpoint, but “we won’t put planes in the air until we know they are safe.” He said he hoped the aircraft would be back in service next week, providing they do not require turbine blade replacement.
The TFE731 engine was first certified in 1972. According to Brecken, more than 12,000 TFE731 engines are flying today, with over 70 million in-service hours. “Still,” he wrote in an email to Skies, “we understand the impact of this issue and are working day and night to resolve it.”
