United 777 Engine Failure Sparks Brush Fire at Dulles

‍WASHINGTON — A United Airlines (UA) Boeing 777-200ER diverted back to Dulles (IAD) last night after an engine failure during takeoff caused a brush fire in a field near the airport.

The 27-year-old aircraft was operating flight UA803 to Tokyo Haneda (HND) when the incident occurred. The flight diverted south, entering a holding pattern over northeast Virginia to dump fuel, before landing safely after 45 minutes in the air.

The fire was sparked off the north end of Dulles’ runway 1C, from which the 777 departed. It was contained and extinguished according to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spokesperson Emily McGee, saying, “The fire was extinguished, and the flight returned to Dulles, landing safely at about 1:30 pm when it was checked by airport fire responders.”

In a post on X, U.S. Department of Transportation head Sean Duffy stated that the FAA is investigating the incident and that a piece of engine cowling may have separated during takeoff.

The Aircraft

The aircraft involved was N78004 (MSN 27580; LN 169), a 27-year-old Boeing 777-224ER, sporting 2 General Electric GE90-92B turbofan engines.

It was initially delivered to Continental Airlines (CO) in November 1998, joining United in October 2010, 2 years before the two carriers merged in March 2012, but 2 weeks after shareholders of both airlines greenlit the deal.

Context: an Important Distinction

Over the past decade, United 777s have accounted for a sizable share of high-profile engine failures, including two catastrophic uncontained failures, but none involving GE90s.

In 2018, N773UA experienced an uncontained engine failure in its right side engine (engine 2) over the Pacific Ocean while operating flight UA1175 from San Francisco (SFO) to Honolulu (HNL). The aircraft, the 4th 777 ever built, landed safely on HNL’s reef runway (8R).

Three years later, in February 2021, N772UA, the 5th 777 ever built, experienced a nearly identical uncontained engine failure in its number 2 engine while climbing out of Denver (DEN). UA328, also bound for Honolulu, returned to DEN safely, but images from passengers and debris raining on the suburb of Broomfield made the incident a headliner. Ironically, the replacement aircraft that would take passengers to HNL later that night would be N773UA.

The two failures, as well as one involving a Japan Airlines (JL) aircraft, were caused by fatigue cracking in the composite fan blades of Pratt & Whitney PW4000-series engines, resulting in the temporary grounding of all PW4000-equipped aircraft, affecting 128 jets. The grounding was lifted in May of the following year, 15 months after UA328, but the affected United jets did not reenter service until July.

It is important to emphasize that today’s incident is still under investigation, and by all current reporting, is almost entirely unrelated to prior incidents involving PW engines, except for the type of aircraft they’re fitted to.