FAA Issues Airworthiness Directive for GE CF34 engines affecting all CRJ-700 series and E170/175 aircraft

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued an airworthiness directive (AD) for certain models of General Electric’s CF34 turbofan series.

American Eagle CRJ-700 with General Electric CF34-8C5 engines

The AD affecting General Electric CF34-8C and CF34-8E turbofan engines comes following multiple reports of corrosion on these engines, this leads to the aircraft’s crew receiving “Engine Degraded” message inflight which leads to an inflight engine shutdown and restart to occur.

The FAA mentions multiple corrosion-based incidents in its report, dating back to summer 2021. The first incident occurred in August 2021 when a Bombardier CRJ-1000 had to divert after experiencing an inflight engine shutdown, it was found that the aircraft had been parked outdoors about 10 miles (16 km) from a saltwater coastline. The FAA also mentions two other similar incidents which occurred in September and October 2021, in both it was also found that the aircraft had been in storage about 45 miles (72 km) of a saltwater coastline, they mention this as a contributing factor to the corrosion.

United Express Embraer E175 with General Electric CF34-8E engines

While the corrosion is yet to result in a major incident the FAA has issued an airworthiness directive looking to reduce the chances of this happening before any such accident related to this occurs.

The AD calls for a rotational torque check on the actuating linkage assembly, depending on the results from this test the compressor inlet guide vane (IGV), outer shroud bushing, and vane spindle bushing may also need to be replaced.

These engines are used on all Embraer E170, E175 and on all Bombardier CRJ -700, -900 and -1000. Both types are extremely popular among U.S. regional carriers, this AD could have significant knock-on effects on regional airline operations around the country with all aircraft needing to be checked.