Superior Air Parts, FAA studying crankshaft failures
Superior Air Parts said it is working with the FAA to determine why three of its engine crankshaft assemblies failed in 2017 and 2018, forcing pilots to land immediately and prompting the regulator to consider mandating removal of crankshaft assemblies from about 115 aircraft engines.
On January 29, the FAA proposed an airworthiness directive (AD) requiring the removal from service of some Superior Air Parts crankshaft assemblies from all Superior Air Parts Model IO-360-series and O-360-series reciprocating engines and certain Lycoming engines.
Scott Hayes, vice president of sales for Coppell, Texas-based Superior Air Parts, said the company was cooperating with the FAA in the investigation.
“Unfortunately, we were only informed of the proposed rule two-weeks ago. Since then, we have been in contact with the FAA regarding their findings to fully understand the issue and identify the most likely cause of the failures,” he said in the company’s February 25 statement. “Our engineering team is currently reviewing all of the available information, and once we have determined the actual cause, we can work with the FAA to determine the most logical course of action.”
Bill Ross, vice president of product support, emphasized that “it is still just too early to form any type of conclusion about what caused these three crankshafts to fail the way they did. We want every one of our customers to know that we put safety ahead of everything and will do everything in our power to find the root cause as soon as possible.”
According to the statement, the affected crankshafts were all produced by “a specific Superior Air Parts vendor between 2012 and 2014” and had parts numbers (P/N) SL36500-A20 or P/N SL36500-A31, with serial numbers 82976-01; 82976-02; SP12-0003 through AP12-0089, inclusive; SP13-0034 through SP13-0150, inclusive; or SP14-0151 through SP14-0202, inclusive.
