US NTSB Has Not Ruled Out Age, Service in Ryanair 737 Engine Incident
BA•Ryanair, Boeing and the incident details
Ryanair and Boeing did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The NTSB is investigating the July 10 incident, in which a piece of the engine broke off the aircraft and smashed the window shortly after takeoff from Thessaloniki in Greece, according to video and the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane, headed to Germany, lost pressure and made an emergency landing.
"Initial indication would suggest it looks like a foreign object damage to the engine on takeoff at Thessaloniki, but we don't have, we can't say that definitively," O'Leary told analysts.
O'Leary said the aircraft was 18 years old and its engine had been fully serviced and overhauled within the last two years. He added that a draft report on the incident would be issued in about 28 days, followed by a more detailed report.
Context from earlier Boeing 737 incidents
The event, which had echoes of two Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 NG flights in 2016 and 2018, prompted a re-evaluation of the response to those incidents, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told Reuters last week, adding: "I don't think the early indications are that (the recent Ryanair problem) mimics what the Southwest incident was."
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
NTSB says age and servicing have not been ruled out
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it has not ruled out age or service issues in a probe into an incident in which a passenger was partly sucked out of a Boeing 737 NG broken window after an uncontained engine failure.
The letter contradicted Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, who said on Monday an initial finding from the probe suggested "foreign object damage" and was not due to the aircraft's age or servicing conditions.
