Above: Damaged No. 3 engine of Mahan Air Boeing 747, upon safe return to Mehrabad International Airport
According to Sky News:
An Iranian plane has made an emergency landing after part of its engine fell apart two minutes after take-off.
The Boeing 747, which had 426 passengers on board, had just departed from Tehran's Mehrabad airport when "a piece of engine number three came off and hit the body of the plane".
Iranian journalists have claimed the engine part fell into an urban area, but no one on the ground is thought to have been injured.
Pilots of the Mahan Air plane decided to immediately return to the airport, and landed it safely just after 7.15am local time on Thursday morning.
According to the private airline, the aircraft had undergone all necessary safety checks and inspections prior to departure.
Affected passengers were being taken to their destination, the southern city of Bandar Abbas, on a different plane.COMMENTARY: Aircraft was Mahan Air Boeing 747-383, reg. EP-MNE (cn 23480/641). Aircraft air emergency occurred during initial climb, returned to THR after lost part to No.3 engine. The rear, low pressure turbine, section of General Electric CF6-50E2 engine broke away and fell to the ground in the Eslamshahr country area of Tehran Province.
Fortunately there were no casualties aboard the aircraft or on the ground.
It's possible this air emergency was the result of sanctions, with passenger carrier not provided relevant service bulletin and access to replacement parts.
In May 2010, four uncontained failures of CF6-45/50 engines in the preceding two years prompted the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to issue an "urgent" recommendation to increase inspections of the engines on U.S. aircraft. None of the four incidents of rotor disk imbalance and subsequent failure resulted in an accident, but parts of the engine did penetrate the engine housing in each case. [source: Wikipedia]
Detail of affected General Electric CF6-50E2 engine
Iranian firemen beside collected engine parts debris from stricken Mahan Air Boeing 747-383 aircraft
Photos: Sky News
