A GEnx engine is to be torn down as part of an investigation after it appears to have ejected something that lead to a grass fire at Charleston Airport in South Carolina on July 28, which prevented flights for an hour.
The US National Transportation Safety Board was informed and has launched an investigation into the incident, which involved a 787 during pre-flight runway testing.
GE Aviation released a statement saying: “GE Aviation continues to work with the NTSB and Boeing to determine the cause of Saturday's incident during a ground test run in Charleston on a newly built 787. GE is working aggressively to move the engine involved in the incident to a GE facility for an investigative tear down.”
There are about 100 GEnx engine in service and they have accumulated more than 125,000 flight hours between them. JAL is flying Genx engines on its 787s. It remains to be seen if any safety bulletins will be issued, but if they are, then large scale disruption could follow.