East Hartford jet-engine builder Pratt & Whitney Co. says heat was the cause of a cracked blade in an engine on an F-35 fighter jet that prompted the entire fleet to be briefly grounded last month, The Associated Press reports.
Bennett Croswell, president of Pratt’s military engines division, said Wednesday on a conference call that finding the cause was ”very good news.” Heat is preferable to the effects of fatigue on the engine part because fatigue spreads, making the problem worse, he said.
Croswell said an inspection found the 6/10-inch long crack in a turbine blade. The Pentagon grounded its F-35 fleet on Feb. 22 after discovering the crack on a jet at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
What Croswell called ”thermal creep” was due to the engine operating longer than usual at a high temperature. It was the only affected engine of about 75, he said.
Pratt is a unit of United Technologies Corp.
