With a joint investigation into the cause of a June engine fire now complete, East Hartford aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney announced it has received a $793 million contract to build 48 engines for F-35 fighter jets.
The deal more than triples the value of Pratt’s contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, which previously awarded $259 million for preliminary work. Pratt said prices for the engines — which include both conventional takeoff-and-landing and short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions — will cost the military between 3.5 percent and 4.5 percent less than under its previously contracted lot.
Pratt and the government’s Joint Program Office said they determined that a “hard rub” between a seal and a rotor caused an engine fire in June at Eglin Air Force Base that grounded the military’s F-35 fleet, forcing Pratt to miss an anticipated unveiling at the Farnborough International Air Show.
“Pratt & Whitney and the JPO worked around the clock and conducted an extensive investigation, and we are confident that we now have improvements in place that will allow us to resume normal flight operations,” Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, executive officer of the F-35 program, said in a statement.
