Boeing faces fresh safety questions after engine fire on flight from Scotland

Boeing faces fresh questions about the safety of its aircraft after an engine fire on a transatlantic flight from Edinburgh caused an emergency landing soon after takeoff. Flames were seen by passengers briefly shooting from the engine of a Delta Air Lines 767 soon after it took off for New York in February last year, after a turbine blade broke off during takeoff. The flames subsided while the plane was airborne but it made an emergency landing at Prestwick airport south of Glasgow, where ground crew noticed fuel leaking from the plane’s right wing. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the UK government agency that investigates aviation safety, has written to the Federal Aviation Administration in the US asking it to take action with Boeing, which has its headquarters in Virginia. The AAIB said the fractured turbine blade damaged five other blades in the engine. Vibrations from the “out of balance turbine” caused a tube carrying fuel in the wing to fracture, leading fuel to escape from the wing’s fuel tank. The fuel was ignited by the engine’s hot air exhaust, with footage of the flames captured by a passenger sitting near the wing. In a statement, the AAIB said: “A safety recommendation has been made to the Federal Aviation Administration that requires the Boeing Aircraft Company to demonstrate that following this serious incident, the design of the slat track housing drain tube on the Boeing 767 family of aircraft continues to comply with the certification requirements for large transport aircraft.”<br/>