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GE says solution near on engine glitch

NEW YORK — General Electric said on Monday it is close to a solution for engines that are losing power for a few seconds after ingesting ice chunks as big as a half-gallon.

The problem was revealed during the weekend after Japan Airlines said it will stop using its new Boeing Co. 787s on some routes. The problem has surfaced on about 400 GE engines used on some 787s and all Boeing 747-8s.

GE said it knows of six incidents since April where those engines lost thrust because of icing. The problem is that in some weather conditions, the engines take in ice crystals that then thaw and refreeze. Those ice chunks can grow to two to four pounds and eventually come loose and get sucked into the engine’s core.

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GE said the engines lost power for around five seconds each time. ‘‘If you were in the plane you wouldn’t even notice it,’’ GE spokesman Rick Kennedy said.

The plane’s owners noticed. The ice chunks damaged at least one engine on a 747-8 freighter, Kennedy said, but all quickly regained power and the planes were able to land at their planned airport.

GE said it has changed the software that runs the engines. It would detect the conditions that produce the icing and open a special door to send the ice chunk out through an outer part of the engine instead of its core.