Sheldon H. Jacobson: Commercial airplane jet engine problems are more common than many realize
Speculation abounds as to the cause of the Air India airplane crash on June 12. One explanation so far is that both engines of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner failed, a highly unlikely event.
Jet engine failures have been making the news this year. A Delta Airlines Airbus A330 engine caught fire on April 21 while taxiing from its gate for departure. This followed an American Airlines Boeing 737-800 engine catching fire at Denver International Airport in March while taxiing to its gate during a precautionary diversion. In February, a United Airlines Airbus A319 experienced an engine fire out of Houston's airport, resulting in an aborted takeoff. Clearly, no airline is immune.
So how frequently do engine failures occur and is this a concern?
Airplane engine shutdowns are dangerous, particularly during takeoff. Commercial pilots are trained to deal with engine shutdowns while in flight. Given that commercial airplanes have two engines, losing one engine is rarely catastrophic because all such airplanes are capable of flying with one engine.
A list compiled by Boeing of commercial jet airplane accidents from 1959 through 2022 illustrates how safe air travel has been for decades.
Based on publicly available data, the recent spate of engine shutdowns is not that surprising.
A jet engine fails around once every 375,000 hours of flight time. This means that a single jet engine operating continuously would fail approximately once every 43 years. But jet engines do not operate continuously, making this figure uninformative, perhaps even misleading.
Airplanes, including their jet engines, go through rigorous regular maintenance designed to keep them at peak reliability on every flight. Moreover, each airplane is in use several times per day, so each flight is not made on a unique airplane. For example, Southwest executes over 4,000 flights per day with a fleet of just over 800 airplanes, or around five flights per day per airplane. Since not all airplanes are in service every day, each airplane in service likely executes even more flights per day.
Jet engine overhauls are part of the heavy maintenance check. Given that the lifespan of an airplane is captured in flight cycles (a takeoff and landing), engines undergo a complete overhaul anywhere between 4,000 flight cycles to as many as 50,000 flight cycles, depending on the type of airplane, the age of the engines and how the airplane is used (long-haul versus short-haul flights). This means that all the maintenance attention paid to jet engines ensures that the risk of an engine failure in-flight is exceedingly low.
But low is not zero, given the volume of flights. In the United States, more than 27,000 flights operate every day, with each airplane equipped with two jet engines. If each such flight lasts two hours on average, then jet engines are operating around 108,000 hours per day. This means that a jet engine should be failing approximately once every three or four days, which seems like an absurdly high rate.
Or is it?
The Federal Aviation Administration newsroom reports a daily list of airplane incidents. From Jan. 1 to June 17, a total of 17 incidents explicitly noted engine issues on commercial flights, or approximately 1 every 10 days, which is on the same order of magnitude as what we would expect.
However, from May 1 to Dec. 31, 2024, 17 incidents noted engine issues, or around 1 every 2 weeks, which is 30% lower than the more recent rate. Though this data represents a very small sample size, and the rates are exceedingly low given the number of flights each day, it does beg the question: Are there components of commercial airplane jet engines that have changed over time causing this elevated risk?
Of course, a jet engine failing does not automatically translate into an airplane accident. The risk to passengers is reduced given that each airplane has two jet engines. Since all commercial jets can fly with a single engine, the risk of losing both engines on a single flight is astronomically low.
Yet such rare events do occur, as the Air India flight demonstrated.
Another example occurred in January 2009, when US Airways Flight 1549 lost power to both its engines when a swarm of Canada geese overwhelmed the engines, causing damage that made them inoperable. The experience and heroics of Capt. Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger and the ground support people resulted in the airplane gliding down to a safe landing in the Hudson River, effectively saving hundreds of people's lives on the airplane — and on the ground, if the airplane had been forced down in a residential or urban area.
The maintenance attention paid to commercial jet engines, and to the entire airplane for that matter, ensures that every time a passenger boards an airplane, mechanical failure and engine fires are low on the spectrum of risks.
The most common cause of airplane accidents is pilot error, which is why the FAA requires pilots to undergo thorough and regular training to keep their skills at the highest level. They also mandate pilot flying hour and on-duty limitations to ensure that fatigue issues are minimized. Air traffic control also manages flights with an eye to keeping airplanes out of harm's way from each other as well as from inclement weather.
Air travel continues to be one of the safest modes of transportation over extended distances. Once the root cause of the Air India crash becomes known, such information can only make air travel even safer in the future. Indeed, the biggest risk faced by travelers is not during their flight, but on their drive to and from the airport.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.
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Chicago Tribune
9 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Commercial airplane jet engine problems are more common than many realize
Speculation abounds as to the cause of the Air India airplane crash on June 12. One explanation so far is that both engines of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner failed, a highly unlikely event. Jet engine failures have been making the news this year. A Delta Airlines Airbus A330 engine caught fire on April 21 while taxiing from its gate for departure. This followed an American Airlines Boeing 737-800 engine catching fire at Denver International Airport in March while taxiing to its gate during a precautionary diversion. In February, a United Airlines Airbus A319 experienced an engine fire out of Houston's airport, resulting in an aborted takeoff. Clearly, no airline is immune. So how frequently do engine failures occur and is this a concern? Airplane engine shutdowns are dangerous, particularly during takeoff. Commercial pilots are trained to deal with engine shutdowns while in flight. Given that commercial airplanes have two engines, losing one engine is rarely catastrophic because all such airplanes are capable of flying with one engine. A list compiled by Boeing of commercial jet airplane accidents from 1959 through 2022 illustrates how safe air travel has been for decades. Based on publicly available data, the recent spate of engine shutdowns is not that surprising. A jet engine fails around once every 375,000 hours of flight time. This means that a single jet engine operating continuously would fail approximately once every 43 years. But jet engines do not operate continuously, making this figure uninformative, perhaps even misleading. Airplanes, including their jet engines, go through rigorous regular maintenance designed to keep them at peak reliability on every flight. Moreover, each airplane is in use several times per day, so each flight is not made on a unique airplane. For example, Southwest executes over 4,000 flights per day with a fleet of just over 800 airplanes, or around five flights per day per airplane. Since not all airplanes are in service every day, each airplane in service likely executes even more flights per day. Jet engine overhauls are part of the heavy maintenance check. Given that the lifespan of an airplane is captured in flight cycles (a takeoff and landing), engines undergo a complete overhaul anywhere between 4,000 flight cycles to as many as 50,000 flight cycles, depending on the type of airplane, the age of the engines and how the airplane is used (long-haul versus short-haul flights). This means that all the maintenance attention paid to jet engines ensures that the risk of an engine failure in-flight is exceedingly low. But low is not zero, given the volume of flights. In the United States, more than 27,000 flights operate every day, with each airplane equipped with two jet engines. If each such flight lasts two hours on average, then jet engines are operating around 108,000 hours per day. This means that a jet engine should be failing approximately once every three or four days, which seems like an absurdly high rate. Or is it? The Federal Aviation Administration newsroom reports a daily list of airplane incidents. From Jan. 1 to June 17, a total of 17 incidents explicitly noted engine issues on commercial flights, or approximately 1 every 10 days, which is on the same order of magnitude as what we would expect. However, from May 1 to Dec. 31, 2024, 17 incidents noted engine issues, or around 1 every 2 weeks, which is 30% lower than the more recent rate. Though this data represents a very small sample size, and the rates are exceedingly low given the number of flights each day, it does beg the question: Are there components of commercial airplane jet engines that have changed over time causing this elevated risk? Of course, a jet engine failing does not automatically translate into an airplane accident. The risk to passengers is reduced given that each airplane has two jet engines. Since all commercial jets can fly with a single engine, the risk of losing both engines on a single flight is astronomically low. Yet such rare events do occur, as the Air India flight demonstrated. Another example occurred in January 2009, when US Airways Flight 1549 lost power to both its engines when a swarm of Canada geese overwhelmed the engines, causing damage that made them inoperable. The experience and heroics of Capt. Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger and the ground support people resulted in the airplane gliding down to a safe landing in the Hudson River, effectively saving hundreds of people's lives on the airplane — and on the ground, if the airplane had been forced down in a residential or urban area. The maintenance attention paid to commercial jet engines, and to the entire airplane for that matter, ensures that every time a passenger boards an airplane, mechanical failure and engine fires are low on the spectrum of risks. The most common cause of airplane accidents is pilot error, which is why the FAA requires pilots to undergo thorough and regular training to keep their skills at the highest level. They also mandate pilot flying hour and on-duty limitations to ensure that fatigue issues are minimized. Air traffic control also manages flights with an eye to keeping airplanes out of harm's way from each other as well as from inclement weather. Air travel continues to be one of the safest modes of transportation over extended distances. Once the root cause of the Air India crash becomes known, such information can only make air travel even safer in the future. Indeed, the biggest risk faced by travelers is not during their flight, but on their drive to and from the airport. Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy.
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