French Ground Some Airbus A330's

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Friday December 8, 1:08 pm Eastern Time

French ground some Airbus A330s - Swissair

(UPDATE: Adds Swissair comment, background on A330s)

ZURICH, Dec 8 (Reuters) - French aviation authorities have grounded a range of Airbus Industrie's [ARBU.UL] A330 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney (NYSE:UTX - news) engines for safety checks, SAirGroup airline unit Swissair said on Friday.

``Swissair has to cancel several long-range flights after the French authorities grounded various production series of Airbus A330 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney engines,'' it said in a statement. P&W is a unit of United Technologies Corp.

Swissair , which has a fleet of 15 Airbus A330s, suspended service with 11 Airbus A330 aircraft. The other four were not affected.

The extent of the problem in the A330s of other airlines was unknown. According to Airbus, 171 of the planes are in service worldwide with engines from three manufacturers.

Swissair spokesman Jean-Claude Donzel said French civil aviation authorities had ordered the grounding on Friday afternoon after irregularities were found on one of the four bolts on the back pylon that connects the engine to the wing.

``The manufacturer says that even with two defective bolts the attachment will still be safe, but you cannot take any risks,'' he added.

The French grounding order related to practically all Airbus A330s with P&W engines, he said.

More than 25 percent of A330s use Pratt & Whitney engines.

Airbus said 82 A330s have Pratt & Whitney engines but not all are affected by the problem.

Major users of the A330 with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines include Korean Air , Swissair affiliate Sabena, Malaysian Airline System Bhd and Thai Airways International Plc .

Swissair said in a statement the grounding followed damage to part of the engine suspension discovered on individual aircraft of several airlines.

The twin-engine A330 is offered by Airbus with P&W's PW4000 power plant, the General Electric (NYSE:GE - news) CF6-80E1 engine or the Trent 700 from Rolls-Royce Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: RR.L).

The long-haul A330 typically seats 300 passengers and entered service in early 1994.

Toulouse-based Airbus Industrie is a partnership that groups European Aeronautic and Defence & Space Co NV and Britain's BAE Systems Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BA.L).

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), December 08, 2000


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