The FAA is issuing today a new airworthiness directive requiring inspections of more CFM56-7B engine fan blades, two weeks after the deadly Southwest Airlines accident involving that kind of engine. As our Brianna Gurciullo reported for Pros, the FAA is mandating ultrasonic or “eddy-current” inspections of fan blades with 20,000 cycles “since new” or with an unclear number of cycles by late August. Then, the inspection must be done again “no later than 3,000 cycles since the last inspection.” (It’s very similar to what the engine maker, CFM International, called for in a service bulletin.) The FAA expects its directive will affect more than 3,700 engines on U.S. aircraft. It follows an emergency AD that applied to engines with 30,000 cycles.
