* NTSB says investigation into GEnx engine failure continues
* Incident occurred during testing of Boeing 787 Dreamliner
* GE says not aware of any risk to other GEnx engines
Aug 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety
Board said on Wednesday that the failure of a General Electric
Co jet engine on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner last
month was a contained incident of the sort that does not
normally pose an immediate safety risk.
The NTSB said that a shaft in the GEnx engine fractured,
leading to the incident in Charleston, South Carolina, in which
debris fell from the engine and sparked a grass fire near the
runway. The jet in question was being tested before Boeing
shipped it to a customer.
"A contained engine failure is a specific engine design
feature in which components might separate inside the engine but
either remain within the engine's cases or exit the engine
through the tail pipe," the NTSB said in a statement. "This
design feature generally does not pose immediate safety risks."
The agency said it will continue to investigate the engine
failure, including a metallurgical analysis of the properties of
the shaft that failed.
GE spokesman Rick Kennedy said the roughly 80 GEnx engines
installed on aircraft around the world remain in use.
"We're not aware of any issue that would hazard the safe
flight of aircraft powered by these engines," Kennedy said.
"We're continuing to ship engines to Boeing."
He noted that of 25,000 engines wholly or partly made by GE
that are in use, there have been six failures of shafts over the
past decade.
Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said the company was "working
very closely with investigators and GE," but declined further
comment.
GE's jet engine business competes with United Technologies
Corp and Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC
