Air France A380 Engine disintegrates over Atlantic

News sources this morning are reporting the disintegration of engine 4 on an Air France A380 – Flight AF66 from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Los Angeles.

It appears that the fan and inlet of the engine separated from the engine.

The plane descended and diverted to Goose Bay, Canada for a safe landing about 2 hours after the event. Passengers remained onboard for about 2 hours after landing, reportedly because the airport did not have suitable stairs for an A380

According to The Aviation Herald:

The airline reported the aircraft diverted to Goose Bay following serious damage to one of the four engines. Flight and Cabin crew handled the serious incident perfectly. Teams are being dispatched to Goose Bay to assist the passengers, the airline is working to re-route the passengers to Los Angeles via their connecting platforms in North America.

Inflight pictures. Loud thud and a lot of vibration. pic.twitter.com/s9GFIyssrh

— Rick Engebretsen (@RickEngebretsen) September 30, 2017

The aircraft carrying 496 passengers and 24 crew is one of 10 A380s in the Air France fleet. Air France has released a press statement:

Air France has immediately decided to make arrangements for two flights from Goose Bay (Canada) to Los Angeles in an effort to get the 497 passengers of Flight AF066 to their destination as quickly as possible.
For now, the two flights are scheduled to leave Goose Bay at 04h15 (local time). One flight will be aboard an Air France B777-300, and the other aboard a B737, an aircraft specially chartered by Air France.
Flight AF066 landed safely at the Goose Bay (Canada) airport ‪at 15h42(UT). The regularly trained pilots and cabin crew handled the incident perfectly.
The passengers are now in the care of airline staff.

Congratulations to the crew and staff of Air France for landing everyone safely.

This is the second major incident with an A380 engine, the last being a ‘catastrophic’ engine failure in a Qantas A380 on flight QF32 just out of Singapore in November 2010 which resulted in the grounding of the entire (6 at the time) Qantas A380 fleet. The captain has written about the failure of the Rolls Royce engine. My understanding is that in the Air France case, the engine is an Engine Alliance GP7000.