Rash of TWA emergency landings being reviewed

By Leisa Zigman

For the fifth time in a week, a TWA MD-80 aircraft has been forced to make an emergency landing. The latest incident happened Wednesday in a flight from St. Louis To Phoenix. The plane landed in Wichita when an engine indicator light started flashing.

Tuesday a plane heading from Miami to New York was turned around after pieces of the plane's engine started breaking off in flight. Cars below had damage but no one was injured.

Last week, Lauren and Beth Bresler of Ladue were enroute to San Jose from St. Louis when the engine on their plane nearly splintered in two. That plane made an emergendy landing at Whiteman Airforce base.

On their return flight from San Jose to St. Louis, it happened to them again. Another engine failure, and another emergency landing. Lauren said, " We blew another engine and this time I heard the pop, and thought oh gosh it's going to happen again." In all the incidents involving MD-80 engines in the past week, no one has been injured.

FAA spokesperson Liz Corey said, "There is no special investigation being conducted but our strategic management office is over there. They have elevated a concern and want to look at these events as a whole, and look for trends to see what is causing the current string of engine failures and asking TWA if it's doing anything differently then what it did in the past concerning these engines."

TWA will not comment until all the engines are examined. That inspection process according to the spokesperson, could take up to 30 days.

Boeing which built the MD-80's in California says it's just a bad string of luck and that the engines have an outstanding 21 year track record. A spokesperson for the pilots' union in St. Louis says the MD-80's are a very safe plane.

http://www.ksdk.com/News/news_article.asp?articleTypeID=200&articleID=15906

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), July 19, 2001

Answers

Headline: FAA investigates string of Trans World Airlines' emergency landings

Source: Associated Press 19 July 2001

URL: http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/46464p-704394c.html

ST. LOUIS (July 19, 2001 10:51 a.m. EDT) - Investigating the cause of a potentially dangerous "trend," federal inspectors are reviewing a string of emergency landings by Trans World Airlines planes that had engine problems, officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration also will likely look for changes in the airline's maintenance procedures, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday.

No one was hurt in the five incidents since July 11.

FAA routinely investigates engine failures, and the review is not punitive, agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

"What we are trying to find out is, is this an odd coincidence or is there a trend developing here?" Cory said.

The most recent emergency landing was Wednesday in Wichita, Kan. A TWA flight from Phoenix to St. Louis landed after a warning light indicated that an engine filter was clogged.

On Tuesday, a flight to New York returned to Miami after its crew reported engine problems. The plane reportedly dropped debris on several cars in Miami.

On Sunday, a TWA plane flying from San Jose, Calif., to St. Louis had to return to San Jose because of an engine problem.

On July 12, TWA Flight 379 was forced to land at Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri because of engine trouble. Initial federal reports listed the cause as "catastrophic" engine failure.

And on July 11, A TWA Boeing 757 flying from St. Louis to Anchorage, Alaska, made an emergency landing in Omaha, Neb.

The St. Louis-based airline has removed the engines involved and will analyze them at its Kansas City maintenance facility.

TWA spokeswoman Julia Bishop-Cross said Wednesday that she was unaware of any FAA review. "It is my understanding that the FAA is not doing any sort of special investigation," she said.

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), July 19, 2001.