In this image taken from video, the engine of United Airlines Flight 328 is on fire after after experiencing "a right-engine failure" shortly after takeoff from Denver International Airport, Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021, in Denver, Colo.
He said fan blade pieces โ including one found on a soccer field in a Denver suburb โ will be examined Tuesday in a Pratt & Whitney laboratory.
As a result, 69 planes and another 59 in storage were grounded in the U.S., Japan and South Korea, the only countries with planes using this particular engine.
The last accident-related death on a U.S. airline flight occurred in 2018, when a broken fan blade triggered an engine breakup on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737.
Hours before the Denver flight, a Boeing 747 cargo plane in the Netherlands suffered an engine failure that resulted in engine parts falling to the ground.