GE probing similar engine parts in wake of BA plane fire

Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) 6 (Reuters) - General Electric Co said on Tuesday it was inspecting out-of-service versions of the engine component involved in a fire with a British Airways plane last month to further determine the cause of the engine failure.

On Sept. 8, a British Airways plane, a Boeing (NYSE: BA - news) 777, caught fire upon take-off from Las Vegas to London; all 157 passengers and 13 crew members escaped, with only a few minor injuries reported.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said last month that a failure in the plane's GE90 engine was not contained by the engine's casing and that it had found several pieces of the high pressure compressor spool on the runway.

In an update to the investigation on Tuesday, the NTSB said that a spool in the high-pressure compressor section of the engine had failed.

The safety board said GE was performing "high-priority, focused inspections" of the high pressure compressor section of other GE90 engines "to determine further investigative actions."

A GE spokesman said the company was "aggressively inspecting out-of-service GE90 compressor spools of similar vintage to the one involved in the September 8 event," adding that industry and government inspectors were "making significant progress in determining root cause." (Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby)