Engine Bursts Into Flame Shortly After Take-Off

It's another in a string of incidents for Japan's beleagured JAL Airways -- a DC-10 was forced to make an emergency landing at Fukuoka Airport Saturday when its number-one engine burst into flames shortly after take-off. This, after a government warning about possible defects in some DC-10 stator vanes and turbine blades.

Saturday's incident rained flaming parts down on parts of Fukuoka Prefect as the aircraft returned to the field. None of the 229 people on board were hurt. But five people on the ground sought medical treatment after they were either hit by the fragments or tried to pick them up from the ground and were burned.

The incident, the latest in a string of problems for JAL, came after the government warned in June about possible stator vane problems within DC-10 engines. JAL acknowledged the report, derived from an FAA warning in the US, and promised to replace the questioned parts by 2010.

Police and JAL workers spent four hours Saturday, probing the engine with a fiberscope. They found nine of the engine's turbine blades had been cracked or otherwise damaged. One of the blades apparently broke apart, colliding with the other blades and sending a shower of more than 600 white-hot fragments out of the engine, along with a long gout of flame.

It was the latest in a series of incidents that led the Japanese government to take extraordinary safety-related steps against the carrier. JAL CEO Isao Kaneko resigned in May as the government's efforts to draw attention to the safety problems mounted.

FMI: www.jal.co.jp/en