The US Navy has grounded its entire fleet of T-45 Goshawk training jets after discovering a fault in the engines. The 193 planes are used to teach new naval pilots how to take off and land on aircraft carriers.
The Navy ordered a “security pause”, temporarily suspending flights. On 11/10, a preflight inspection at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas, revealed that a T-45C's engine blade was damaged, said Elizabeth Fahrner, spokeswoman for the Executive Tactical Aircraft Program (PEO). , to USNI News.
The Navy then conducted an engineering review on the Rolls-Royce Turbomeaca F405-RR401 engines, leading to the grounding of the T-45C fleet, ordered by Rear iral Richard Brophy, Chief of Naval Air Training (CNTRA).
“The Naval Graduate Flight Training Systems Program Office, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Chief of Naval Air Training and Fleet Staff have been working around the clock with industry partner Rolls Royce to identify the root cause of the recent T-45 engine blade failure. Engineering review is ongoing and will continue until we can safely return the T-45 fleet to flight status to CNATRA training.”, said PEO Rear iral John Lemmon in an October 18 statement.
The T-45 Goshawk is a training aircraft, used by the US Navy and Marines to train new naval aviators, which includes landing and takeoff training for aircraft carriers. The jet was developed by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) from the UK's BAe Hawk, and replaced the T-2 Buckeye and TA-4 Skyhawk. It has been in service since 1991 and over 220 units have been produced.
With flights suspended, aviators are getting around the problem with more instruction in flight simulators and classrooms, the Navy said. CNTRA has the goal of training around 1.100 naval pilots per year.
