On August 27, a United Airlines Boeing 767-300ER intending on operating a flight between Chicago O’Hare and Zurich suffered an engine fire on the takeoff roll.
Incident: United Airlines Flight Chicago to Zurich Suffers Engine Fire…
United Airlines flight UA3 was a normal routine scheduled flight between Chicago O’Hare and Zurich. The flight was being operated by N658UA, one of the carrier’s Boeing 767-300ER aircraft.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N658UA is 30.9 years old at the time of writing, having been delivered new to the airline back in October 1992.
N658UA is powered by two Pratt & Whitney engines.
The aircraft taxied out to the runway at O’Hare, and began its takeoff roll.
At low speed, the aircraft took the decision to reject the departure to indications of an engine fire on the aircraft.
From there, the aircraft remained on the stand for a few minutes before heading back to the gate when the all-clear was given by emergency crews.
Since the incident, the aircraft hasn’t flown another flight, but data from RadarBox suggests that it is going to attempt the UA3 rotation from Chicago O’Hare to Zurich again today.
At this stage, it is unclear what caused the engine fire onboard the United Airlines Boeing 767-300ER, but if the flight does depart tomorrow, then the issue has been fixed quickly by technicians.
If not, then it will require an additional look and potentially new engines if the issue is major enough to remove its airworthiness capability.
For now, let’s see what happens over the course of today.
