Air France Flight 066
Airbus A380-861 · Diversion following uncontained engine failure in cruise
From Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ENG17RA039
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 521
- Survivors
- 521
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Airbus A380-861
- Flight
- AF066
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A380
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- F-HPJE
- Operator
- Air France
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)To Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Uncontained engine failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
Air France Flight 066 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, operated by Air France and using an Airbus A380. On 30 September 2017, the aircraft suffered an uncontained engine failure and made an emergency landing at Goose Bay Airport, Canada. While the aircraft was in cruise flight 150 km southeast of Paamiut, Greenland, the outboard right-side Engine Alliance GP7200 engine failed, with the fan hub and intake separating from the aircraft. An accident investigation report was published by the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) in September 2020; the investigation determined that the engine failure was caused by a crack in the fan hub due to "cold dwell" metal fatigue.
This was the second of two uncontained engine failures suffered by the Airbus A380 type, following that of a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine on Qantas Flight 32 in 2010.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Air France issued a press release stating that an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the engine failure, including representatives of the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA, the French aviation accident investigation bureau), Airbus and Air France. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is responsible for investigating aviation accidents in Canada and planned to send investigators. However, since the incident occurred over Greenland, the Danish Accident Investigation Board had jurisdiction over the investigation.
On 3 October 2017 the Danish aviation authorities delegated the investigation to the BEA. Investigators from Denmark, the US and Canada joined the investigation. Advisors from Airbus, Air France and Engine Alliance (a partnership between General Electric and Pratt & Whitney) also flew to Goose Bay. The first observation was that the engine's fan hub had detached during the flight and dragged the air inlet with it.
Some six days later, debris from the aircraft's engine was recovered in Greenland.
The BEA stated that "the recovery of the missing parts, especially of the fan hub fragments, was the key to supporting the investigation" and initiated a large search operation including synthetic-aperture radar overflights on a Dassault Falcon 20, but failed to locate the crucial components in 2018, before returning in 2019.
In July 2019, another missing piece of the engine, weighing 150 kg, was located in Greenland and recovered. The fan hub impact is believed to have made a small crater in the ice sheet that quickly filled with snow before initial search activities. The search and recovery for this missing fan hub took almost two years, with multiple search campaigns using different ice-penetrating radar and transient electromagnetic anomaly technologies. It was ultimately recovered from 4 m depth in a large crevasse field. This search and recovery campaign was featured in the documentary "The Sky Detectives".
The BEA released its final report in September 2020, indicating that the engine failed from a crack in the Ti-6-4 alloy fan hub caused by cold dwell fatigue cracking.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Air France Flight 066” (revision 1364586284, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
On September 30, 2017, an Air France A380 operating as flight AF 66 from Paris, France to Los Angeles, California had the No. 4 engine's inlet and fan rotor separate from the remainder of the engine. The airplane diverted to Goose Bay, Canada for landing. The airplane is equipped with Engine Alliance GP7200 engines.
The investigation of this incident is under the jurisdiction and control of the French government. This report is for information purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the French government. Further information pertaining to this incident may be obtained from:
Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses Zone Sud - Batiment 153 10 rue de Paris Aêroport du Bourget 93352 Le Bourget Cedex France
Tel.: +33 (01) 49 92 72 00
Fax: +33 (01) 49 92 72 03
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Air France Flight 066
- Article
- Air France Flight 066
- Revision
- 1364586284 · 2026-07-17 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q41486205
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ENG17RA039
- Event ID
- 20170930X94216
- Case number
- ENG17RA039
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Air France Flight 066" (page 55398988, revision 1364586284); merged with NTSB case ENG17RA039 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record ENG17RA039
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Air France Flight 066" and NTSB case ENG17RA039, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.