Engines

Honda threw the listing Indy Racing League a long-range lifeline Saturday when it announced that it would furnish engines for IRL cars through 2009, even if it meant supplying the entire 33-car field for the Indianapolis 500. General Motors, which provided nearly all the engines for the fledgling IRL in its formative years, has announced that it is pulling out after this season, giving way to the huge budgets of Toyota and Honda.

A Continental Airlines Boeing 727 jetliner returned to Newark International Airport shortly after takeoff Thursday and made a safe landing after an engine failed, authorities said. No injuries were reported.

An engine that blew apart in Saturday's Florida accident involving a Delta Air Lines plane was virtually identical to another engine that failed during a TWA flight the same day, forcing an emergency landing in Omaha, Neb. Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for engine maker Pratt & Whitney, described the engines as "very close," both belonging to the JT8D-200 series. In Pensacola, an engine on Delta Flight 1288 blew apart Saturday as the MD-88 was preparing to take off. Two people were killed.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., a major Japanese defense contractor, said it has signed an agreement with Pratt & Whitney to participate in the production of the U.S. company's new high bypass ratio turbofan engine for commercial aircraft. The agreement calls for the Japanese company to manufacture some of the turbine blades and turbine disks for PW4000 engines, Mitsubishi said.

International Aero Engine, the airplane engine manufacturing group that includes Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce, said that it has scrapped plans to build the revolutionary engine, leaving the market clear for competing models by General Electric Co. IAE said it could not build the engine, known as the Superfan, to meet a 1992 deadline from a key customer, Airbus Industrie.

An engine fell off the wing of a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Tuesday from the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, but the pilot landed the plane safely and no one was injured, a company spokesman said. Spokesman Steve Smith said 39 passengers and five crew members were on board the two-engine Boeing 737-300 for a scheduled nonstop flight to Houston. As the plane took off, the right engine dropped off the wing and crashed onto a grassy area next to a runway.

Delta Air Lines Inc. said it will inspect the engines on its 132 Boeing 757 jetliners after one engine failed and another on an American Airlines plane developed cracks. The National Transportation Safety Board has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to order the inspections, citing "serious concerns that warrant immediate action by the FAA." As of Friday the FAA had not made a decision.

Isuzu Motors Ltd. will purchase U.S.-made engines for vehicles it exports and Isuzu trucks produced in the United States, a company spokesman said Monday. Isuzu Motors plans to purchase 30,000 gasoline engines from General Motors annually, of which 10,000 units will be sent to Japan, Takashi Fujii said. The GM engine will be used in about 10% of the small pickup trucks and multipurpose four-wheel drive cars Isuzu plans to export to the United States this fall, Fujii said.

A joint venture between General Electric Co. and France's Snecma won an order Friday to provide up to $1 billion in jet engines to the Soviet Union, the latest in a series of East-West aerospace deals. The accord calls for CFM International, a 50-50 venture of GE and the French company, to provide engines for at least 20 Soviet-made IL-86 aircraft, GE officials said at the Paris Air Show.

Investigators have found severe cracks in the engines of grounded Boeing 737-400s operated by British carriers, the Times of London reported Friday. The Department of Civil Aviation, which ordered the aircraft grounded last week, and the Department of Transport said they could not confirm or deny the report. The Times said the cracks were more serious than the breaking of fan blades in two engines, which occurred during two British flights last week. It said that new cracks have been found on previously untested engines.