Engines

A commuter jet passenger was injured slightly Friday when the covering to a jet engine broke loose, hitting and shattering a window next to her seat. The right engine cowling on American Eagle Flight 5136 from San Francisco broke the window about 8 a.m., midway through the 53-minute flight, said Gina Ruckols, a spokeswoman for the San Luis Obispo-based subsidiary of American Airlines. The Metro 3 twin-engine turbo-prop jet landed without incident at 8:27 a.m.

A UTA French Airlines DC-10 bound for Tahiti was forced to return to Los Angeles International Airport early Saturday because of a malfunctioning engine, but landed safely, authorities said. Flight 503 landed at 5:07 a.m., more than an hour after the Federal Aviation Administration was notified that the plane was flying with one engine shut down and was returning to the airport, an FAA spokesman said.

A Trans World Airlines MD-80 airliner landed safely Friday at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport after an engine came apart on takeoff and a 2-foot piece of it narrowly missed a man on the ground. "I heard a large explosion, and then I heard a lot of debris hitting the roof," said Mark Erp, 29, manager of an auto body shop in Kinloch, next to the airport. "Then, a big hunk came through the roof and hit the floor about 10 or 15 feet from me," he said. "I had been walking that way.

A Hawaiian Airlines DC-9 with 117 passengers on board lost part of an engine shortly after takeoff Friday, and falling pieces of metal shattered windshields and pierced the roofs of cars parked below, authorities said. No injuries were reported, and the twin-engine plane returned safely to Honolulu International Airport, where the passengers transferred to a different aircraft and resumed their flight, spokesman Keoni Wagner said. Tony Robella, security manager for Matson Navigation Co.

It was oddly stubby in form, tired yellow in color and a little rebellious in demeanor before a crew of workers could get it settled down. First the truck that brought it ripped up some miniature railroad track and then the crane boom it was suspended from knocked a limb from a eucalyptus tree.

An aircraft jet engine used for instruction exploded Thursday at a College of San Mateo aeronautical class, hurling shrapnel as far as 30 feet and injuring two students, one seriously, police reported. The seriously hurt man is 20-year-old Ellison Lowrimore of San Bruno, whose left leg was reported badly injured by flying fragments. He was in surgery at Mills Memorial Hospital hours after the 9:15 a.m. blast in a fenced-in area outside the aeronautical lab.

Boeing Co. said an engine made by United Technologies Corp. caused the May failure of a Delta 3 rocket and left a communications satellite in a useless orbit. A crack in the combustion chamber of the upper-stage engine, made by the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies, resulted in the second consecutive failure of a Delta 3 rocket, according to a Boeing report. The satellite was owned by Loral Space & Communications Ltd.

What aviation officials called a "bird strike" disabled a Delta Airlines flight Monday shortly after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport. The pilot of the Salt Lake City-bound airliner shut down the No. 2 engine of the Boeing 757 after a bird, probably a sea gull, got caught in the engine's fan blades, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Fred O'Donnell. The incident happened "within three to five minutes" after takeoff, O'Donnell said.

The Air Force has grounded its fleet of B-1B strategic bombers after an engine problem similar to one in which an engine dropped off of a bomber in flight, officials said Thursday. A B-1B on a training flight early Wednesday morning was making practice approaches at Dyess Air Force Base, Tex., when the crew heard a loud bang, Pentagon spokesman Bob Hall said. Ground safety personnel reported a fire in the right inboard engine. The plane made an emergency landing but no one was hurt.

General Electric Co. said Tuesday that it sold $38 million worth of aircraft engines to Air Pacific airline. Air Pacific, based in Fiji, plans to use the engines in three Boeing planes it will lease or own. The planes are to be delivered this fall, in 1994 and in 1996.