Rolls-Royce says 787 engine failed during testing

Rolls-Royce Group Plc said a Trent 1000 engine built for Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner failed during testing and that a probe into the incident has begun.

Rolls doesn't anticipate that the failure on a test bed at its main manufacturing site in Derby, England, will have any impact on the development of the engine or the 787's entry into service, company spokesman Craig Taylor said in an e-mail.

"We are now investigating in detail and have made good progress in understanding the issue," Taylor said. He declined to comment on the nature of the incident.

The engine failure hasn't affected the Dreamliner flight- test program "to date," Lori Gunter, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based Boeing, said today in an e-mail. The company is "actively participating" in the investigation, she said.

The Dreamliner's debut has been pushed back more than two years because of parts shortages, redesigns, problems with new materials and heavier reliance on suppliers, and Boeing said on Aug. 11 that it's re-inspecting flight-test and production planes to ensure tail assemblies built by Finmeccanica SpA of Italy meet standards. Service entry may slide into 2011 from late this year in part because of the flaws with horizontal stabilizers that keep the 787 steady in flight, Boeing has said.

The Flight Global website said earlier that the engine failure at London-based Rolls may have been "uncontained," meaning that pieces would have been flung out at high speed, piercing the housing.

Rolls, the world's second-biggest engine maker, said that "a modification is already in place for later engines." Taylor said he wasn't immediately able to clarify whether that meant that the first batch of engines has had to be altered or that the second is of a different design and therefore unaffected.