Pratt Discloses Problem with the PW1100G-JM Engine

A new public filing revealed potential problems with the PW1100 engines.

In a disclosure filed with the Securities Exchange Commission this morning, Raytheon (the parent company to Pratt & Whitney) revealed (this is part of the attachment):

“Unrelated to the company’s second quarter earnings results, Pratt & Whitney has determined that a rare condition in powdered metal used to manufacture certain engine parts will require accelerated fleet inspection. This does not impact engines currently being produced.

As a result, the business anticipates that a significant portion of the PW1100G-JM engine fleet, which powers the A320neo, will require accelerated removals and inspections within the next nine to twelve months, including approximately 200 accelerated removals by mid-September of this year. The business is working to minimize operational impacts and support its customers.”

RTX, Inc., For 8-K (July 25, 2023) (“Pratt & Whitney Fleet Update”)

We were unable to identify an airworthiness directive related to this disclosure (the only recent airworthiness directive for PW1100 series engines seemed unrelated to this disclosure); so we have no further information about the condition giving rise to “accelerated fleet inspection.” But this situation may present opportunities for ASA members to support their air carrier partners who are affected by these inspections.

UPDATE

Pratt held an earnings call this morning and discussed the issue in a bit more depth. The issue focused on powdered metal issues that arose during production in 2015-2021. There are transcripts of the call on third party websites and you can listen to the audio recording as well. The following text is taken from the transcript, online:

Pratt previously determined that a rare condition in powdered metal used to manufacture certain engine parts may reduce the life of those parts. It’s important to note upfront that the current production of powdered metal parts is not impacted and Pratt will continue to deliver both new engines and new spare parts across all product lines. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

As a result of this rare condition in powdered metal, Pratt instituted enhanced inspections to be performed at scheduled shop visits; however, based on very recent learnings from these inspections, Pratt has now determined that the timing of these shop visits needs to be accelerated. While powdered metal parts have been widely used throughout Pratt’s product lines for decades, Pratt has bounded the potentially impacted material. It has concluded that this condition was present in rare instances in powdered metal produced from approximately Q4 2015 into Q3 2021.

The PW1100 engine fleet which powers the A320 Neo will experience the most significant impact due to production volumes during this period. Based on the current assessment, Pratt anticipates by mid-September that approximately 200 PW1100 engines will be removed for enhanced inspection. Beyond the initial 200 engines, Pratt also anticipates that approximately 1,000 additional PW1100 engines will need to be removed from the operating fleet for this inspection within the next 9 to 12 months, though the exact number of engines and the timing of those removals is not yet finalized.

It’s important to note that some of the engines that must be removed for inspection in 2023 and 2024 are already forecasted for a regular shop visit during this time period, and so the incremental impact to the fleet is still under evaluation. Capability to perform the accelerated inspections, which are focused on the high pressure turbine discs, is already in place and Pratt is developing plans to optimize shop visit capacity within its network to complete these inspections as quickly and efficiently as possible.

As I said earlier, current production of powdered metal parts is not impacted and Pratt will continue to deliver both new engines and new spare parts across all product lines. This is a result of the combination of extensive improvements that were made to our powder processing to remove possible contamination sources and the deployment of enhanced inspections for improved detection. Pratt is also analyzing any potential impact to other parts of its fleet, but the current expectation is that they will less impacted based upon existing inspections, utilization profiles and maintenance intervals.

Let me take a moment to explain the timing of these developments. We proactively monitor the performance of our engines throughout their life cycle. It’s foundational to how we maintain and manage the safe operation of our fleet. We do this in a number of ways: analyzing large amounts of data generated during operation, inspection parts in MRO, destructively testing certain parts to analyze their material properties, and characterizing what we observe. We use learnings from this proactive monitoring to inform our predictive models so we can address any issues before they appear in our fleet.

In this case, as Pratt analyzed some recent inspection findings, it determined the need for an accelerated inspection plan even though the fall-out rate from these inspections is expected to be very low. The next step is for Pratt to publish a service bulletin describing the inspections, and the FAA will likely follow up with an air worthiness directive.

The financial impact associated with these renewals is still being analyzed and will depend on a number of factors, including the result of the inspections, the amount of work needed to be done in our network shops, and of course the impact on our customers. This is obviously a difficult situation for our customers, especially given the strong demand for travel. We are truly sorry for the impact of this disruption and we will do all we can to support our customers.