Nepal Airlines’ grounded Airbus awaits the replacement of compressor blades
Kathmandu – 10 July, 2016
Revised; as per recent update: There has not been made any decisions regarding the import of spare parts from the previous contract of Airbus with NA or importing it from separate bidding system. The inspection till now shows the compulsory change of 3 damaged compressor blades and a slightly damaged one too. The maintenance procedure is in halt now awaiting the delivery of arrival of compressor blades and maintenance part will be completed within 2 to 3 hours once the compressor blades arrive the hangar according to a source from NA. It has also been reported that there is no additional damage to the engine after performing a bosroscopic inspection in the internal parts of the engine.
The grounded aircraft ‘Lumbini’ of national flag carrier Nepal Airlines awaits the replacement of its fan blades inside the right engine after suffering a bird strike on July 07 while the aircraft was rolling for takeoff. The aircraft preparing for takeoff outbound to Hong Kong during the incident was carrying 59 passengers including crew who were all safe after the incident.
The aircraft has undergone a series of inspection by its engineers who have concluded the need of replacement of the compressor blades in the right engine that were damaged by the bird strike. The fan blades on the leading edge of a jet engine like in Airbus 320 are the compressor blades that compress the air entering the engine. After the incident it was found that three of the twenty two compressor blades in the right engine had been damaged due to the strike that need to be replaced with new ones.
The engine is supposed to be replaced with the new blades soon and the airplane will be released for test flight on coming Tuesday according to a source from maintenance team of NA. Commercial flights will be resumed only after the successful conduction of the test flight. However the release for test is not sure to be scheduled for Tuesday as spare parts are yet to arrive and the whole replacement procedure can be carried out only after its arrival.
Another aircraft of Boeing 737 series from Oman Air also remains grounded on parking bay of Tribhuvan International Airport after detection of a problem in left engine undergoing the maintenance since July 06.
