Briefcase

FAA demands fixes to Pratt’s Airbus A320

U.S. aviation regulators outlined inspections needed for potentially faulty parts on some of Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan engines that power Airbus’s best-selling A320neo model.

The directive affects 20 engines on U.S.-registered aircraft, according to a regulatory filing by the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday. The impact on the worldwide fleet will be larger as other nations adopt the FAA’s requirements.

Pratt, a unit of aerospace giant RTX, said in July that 1,200 GTF engines must be removed and inspected over the next 12 months after the company discovered contamination in the powdered metal used to manufacture high-pressure turbine discs could shorten their life span. The company has said that the first 200 turbines will need accelerated removals by mid-September.

Inspections of first- and second-stage high-pressure turbine discs will cost $8,500 each, according to the FAA’s airworthiness directive. Replacing any faulty discs will cost operators about $171,000 apiece.

The costs could be substantial. Based on the FAA estimates, the total cost across the global fleet could exceed $400 million if all 1,200 engines that need inspection were found to have flawed first and second stage discs.

Elon Musk plans to limit block function on X

Elon Musk said Friday that the block function will be greatly limited on X, formerly known as Twitter, stripping the social media platform of a feature long seen as a protection against harassment.

Musk said in multiple tweets that the block function “makes no sense” and that it will be “deleted as a ‘feature,’ except for DMs.” He was responding to a tweet by Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, an account representing a club of Tesla owners, which asked whether there was difference between blocking and muting.

It’s unclear when the change would take effect. The company didn’t immediately comment.

Blocking a user on the platform prevents that user from interacting with an account – such as seeing a user’s tweets or addressing them directly. The blocked user knows they have been blocked. Muting an account, meanwhile, prevents a user from seeing the account’s posts. Muted accounts do not know someone has muted them.

Some users of Musk’s platform said limiting the block function would lead to more harassment on a platform that already struggles to contain abuse.

From wire reports