Despite having now received their second Boeing 787-8 (MSN 34746 | ET-AOR), Ethiopian Airlines (ET) have only recently finished dealing with their maiden Boeing 787-8's (MSN 34745 | ET-AOQ) first technical glitch: the replacement of one of its General Electric (GEnx-1B64) engines which had experienced problems with its hydraulics and oil leakage.
According to the Addis Fortune, the replacement process started on Friday 21 September and was carried out in-situ at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport by American and Japanese technicians from General Electric, with assistance from three trained Ethiopian technicians.
"The replacement of the Dreamliner engine had taken place at the wide body hangar of the Ethiopian Airlines, where the large B-787 and B-777 aircraft are serviced. There are two other hangars under the national carrier. "
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| Ethiopian's 787 left GEnx 1B engine (HarareAirportBlogger) |
The problem with Ethiopian's GEnx powerplants come after General Electric recently ordered inspections on all 120 GEnx
engines operating on Boeing 747-8s and 787s, to check for installation
errors of a component, a low-pressure
turbine stage-one nozzle, now linked to a recent incident in September, in which a GEnx-2B turbofan was damaged during a rejected take-off by an AirBridge Cargo Boeing 747-8 in Shanghai, China.
Kelly Nantel, public affairs director for the National
Transportation Safety Board, said damage in the affected Boeing 747-8
engine was mainly limited to the low-pressure turbine hardware,
located at the back of the engine.
"Aside from some minor collateral damage, the engine hardware forward of that point doesn't exhibit any damage," she said in an interview. "Our initial findings indicate that the low-pressure turbine stage-one nozzle may have been improperly assembled."