US lawmakers urge FAA to submit delayed airline engine safety report to Congress

Two senior US lawmakers Wednesday said the FAA has failed to turn over a report to Congress on airline engine safety required under a 2018 law. Sam Graves, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Garret Graves, the senior Republican on the aviation subcommittee, cited Saturday’s engine failure on a United Boeing 777-200 plane in urging the FAA to quickly submit the required report. Without the report, they wrote FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, it was impossible for anyone “to know whether the best practices and recommendations to improve airline engine safety could have helped to prevent the engine mishaps that have taken place since the October 2019 safety review.” The letter cited other recent engine failures, including a December failure in Japan and the 2018 Southwest Flight 1380 failure of a CFM56-7B turbofan engine that led to the death of passenger after shrapnel shattered a window. The FAA said this week that after the Japanese incident it had been considering stepping up required inspections.<br/>