Pratt & Whitney To Propose Mitigation Plan For Modified Engine Configuration

(RTTNews) - Pratt & Whitney announced it continues to evaluate the impact of findings, in the previous week, relating to a knife edge seal on the High Pressure Compressor aft hub on a limited subpopulation of the PW1100G-JM engine that powers the Airbus A320neo aircraft. Pratt & Whitney implemented an engineering change in mid-2017 that was intended to improve the durability of the knife edge seal for the engine. In the current year, four of these modified engines did not perform as anticipated. Pratt & Whitney, in coordination with Airbus, will present to regulatory authorities a proposed mitigation plan for the modified configuration.

The current population of impacted engines is 43 engines installed on 32 aircraft, of which 21 aircraft have one engine with the modified configuration, and 11 aircraft have two engines with that configuration. There are also approximately 55 such engines delivered to the Airbus final assembly line awaiting installation on customer aircraft.

The company said it is working to assess an overall industrial and delivery plan to minimize customer disruption. Pratt & Whitney will be in a position to provide greater detail around the remediation plan and impact, if any, on its 2018 delivery plan, once the regulatory authorities address its proposed solution.