FAA orders inspections of 737s after four non-fatal engine shutdowns - Ars Technica

Enlarge / Southwest has dozens of 737s in storage. The airline says it hasn't experienced the glitch described in the FAA directive.

Dylan Ashe

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airlines to inspect the engines of their 737 airplanes after four reports of "single-engine shutdowns."

Many 737 aircraft have been sitting in hangars for weeks as the coronavirus pandemic suppressed demand for air travel. As airlines have resumed operations, they've discovered that a key valve has a tendency to get stuck after weeks without being used. The FAA estimates that around 2,000 aircraft could be affected.

"If this valve opens normally at takeoff power, it may become stuck in the open position during flight and fail to close when power is reduced at the top of descent," the FAA's directive warns. That could result in "an unrecoverable compressor stall and the inability to restart the engine."

This has happened on four occasions in recent weeks. Alaska Airlines has acknowledged that one of its airplanes suffered from the problem during a flight from Seattle to Austin. The airplane was able to land safely despite the unexpected shutdown of one of its engines and no one was injured, the airline says.

Thankfully, the same was true of the other three incidents: only one engine shut down and no injuries occurred as a result. But the FAA worries that an aircraft could suffer the same malfunction in both engines simultaneously, which could "result in a forced off-airport landing."

So the FAA is ordering airlines to carefully inspect the engines of any 737 aircraft that has been out of service for seven or more days in a row—and hasn't flown 10 times since then. If a sticky valve is discovered, it must be replaced before the airplane can be put back into service. Most airlines said that the mandatory inspections would not significantly impact their flight schedules.

The order relates to older models of the 737—from the 737-300 line through the 737-900 line. Boeing's newer 737-MAX line is still grounded as the company struggles to remedy design and software problems.

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FAA orders inspections of 737s after four non-fatal engine shutdowns - Ars Technica
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