acl65pilot

I knew there was a LAX 767 last night that had to return. There is/are some other stories surrounding the LAX air return as well be here is the press report on it.

Three Delta Air Lines Inc. jets suffered separate engine emergencies over the weekend, despite a stepped-up maintenance program put in place partly to combat engine problems.
The trio of engine shutdowns—two on specially equipped planes used for long-haul international routes—all ended in safe emergency landings without injuries. They are being probed by Delta and federal safety experts.
The incidents included a Moscow-bound Delta Boeing 767 with more than 200 people aboard, which returned safely to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday after losing thrust from its left engine shortly after takeoff. A phalanx of fire trucks and more than 100 fire fighters showed up for the touchdown because of mistaken early reports that there was a fire from the engine or on a wing.
A Delta spokesman said late Sunday, "it's too early to speculate about the exact causes of each of these incidents." Officials won't know for at least a few days whether maintenance had a role in any of the incidents.
But the pattern is likely to prompt federal air-safety regulators and accident investigators to delve into maintenance practices at Delta, which suffered an unusual spate of in-flight engine malfunctions, shutdowns and other maintenance-caused delays and cancellations throughout the spring and part of the summer.
The Delta pilots of a Boeing 767 en route from Atlanta to Los Angeles on Sunday declared an emergency after reporting an engine problem and returned to Atlanta. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the incident, the plane scraped its tail during the landing.
Saturday, a Delta Boeing 757 with more than 160 people aboard made an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland, after developing problems with one of its two engines while crossing the Atlantic from Philadelphia. On Sunday, a Delta spokesman said preliminary indications are the Shannon incident was caused by a compressor stall.
During much of the busy summer travel season, Delta's flights on average recorded significantly more delays than those of some of its biggest competitors.
But according to a Delta spokesman last month, the carrier's on-time percentage had improved, with maintenance-related cancellations dropping by as much as 80% for some periods.
Delta officials previously acknowledged the airline's Boeing 767 fleet had a higher than anticipated number of in-flight engine shutdowns earlier this year. But the spokesman said Delta's aircraft "never exceeded the threshold of what was acceptable.''
According to air-safety websites that keep track of various types of in-flight incidents on commercial jets, between early July and late September Delta's overall fleet of single-aisle and wide-body aircraft had more than ten incidents of engine problems on takeoff or in the air.
Last month, a Delta spokesman said in-flight engine shutdowns were more frequent earlier in the year. He attributed the overall increase in maintenance problems to the challenge of melding Delta's maintenance and operations with those of Northwest Airlines as part of the merger of the two carriers, completed late last year.
Prompted partly by recurring engine issues and, to a greater extent, an uptick in many other types of maintenance-related delays, Delta's management months ago opted to increase the frequency of certain inspections. The airline also beefed up the mechanic work force at some airports, and extended layover times to allow more-thorough checks of some planes between flights. Delta says those efforts paid off in better on-time reliability in October.
Throughout the Delta-Northwest merger consolidation period, according to industry officials, the new entity had to reconcile different maintenance practices, flight manuals and other operational procedures. Pilots at the two airlines, for example, had different rules about when they were permitted to fly with elevated engine-oil temperatures.
On Sunday, the Delta spokesman said most of the maintenance changes made earlier this year focused on onboard systems that didn't pertain to engines. While overall engine incidents in some months spiked above historic levels, the spokesman reiterated that the number of in-flight shutdowns never exceeded regulatory limits or any of the company's own acceptable trend lines.
Last month, Delta confirmed that over a five-day period, one of its Boeing 767s had two different engines malfunction in midair. The first incident occurred Sept. 27 on a flight from Atlanta to Stuttgart, Germany, when the crew opted to divert to St. John's, Newfoundland. There were no injuries.
The engine was changed but the same plane—on its next trip carrying passengers—suffered a second emergency with the replacement engine. Bound for Seattle with more than 150 people aboard, the pilots decided to put down at Syracuse, N.Y.