08/20/2007

By DAN CATERINICCHIA  / Associated Press

The Boeing aircraft and its engine co-produced by a unit of General Electric Co., were involved in a handful of fires on U.S. flights before Monday's dramatic China Airlines explosion.

Minutes after all 165 people aboard evacuated, the China Airlines plane burst into a fireball on the tarmac at Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan.

The 737-800 had CFM 56 engines, made by CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aviation and France's Snecma.

A preliminary search of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's accident/incident database found four cases involving fires with similar Boeing planes or engines between July 1998 and July 2005.

Three of the incidents involved 737-800's. The other was on a 737-700, but with a similar engine.

None of the U.S. incidents resulted in the dramatic fireball of the China Airlines flight, but some did require emergency reroutes and evacuations after the fires started, according to the FAA records.

A Continental Airlines flight returned to Houston's George Bush International Airport in July 2005 after the pilot heard several loud thumps from one of the engines. An emergency evacuation was conducted on the left side of the plane after the fire department and crew saw smoke and fire from the right engine.

A post-flight inspection found no external fire damage and there were no injuries, according to the FAA report.

A Boeing Co. spokesman said Japan requested technical assistance following the China Airlines fire and that a company investigator was expected to arrive Wednesday.

An FAA spokesman said investigators from the agency and the National Transportation Safety Board are headed overseas to examine the scene.

Rick Kennedy, a spokesman for GE-Aviation in Cincinnati, said a CFM representative also would be on the scene later this week, adding that there are currently about 18,000 CFM 56 engines in service, including 2,300 on Boeing 737 models.

Aviation analysts say the planes and engines are the safest in the world.

Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at Teal Group Corp., said the four FAA incidents dating back to 1998 are "statistically insignificant" considering the thousands of Boeing 737's and CFM 56 engines in use.

"It's an impossibly low-incident level," Aboulafia said. "It would be like a Honda Accord blowing up on the freeway."

Michael Boyd, president of The Boyd Group aviation consulting firm, agreed: "If our cars were as reliable as that engine, Detroit would be out of business."

Still, international aviation authorities aren't taking any chances. Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration ordered China Airlines and its Mandarin Airlines subsidiary to ground 13 other Boeing 737-800s pending inspections.

Japanese authorities ordered emergency inspections of all Boeing 737-800 planes owned by domestic airlines, and some 737-700 models that carry a similar engine.

Shares of Boeing fell $1.06 to $94.87 in afternoon trading, while GE dipped 59 cents to $37.86.