No fatalities

AIRBUS A220 300 accident at Bordeaux, OF, France, 12 Feb 2020

Bordeaux, OF, France

On February 12, 2020, an AIRBUS A220 300 operated by airBaltic was involved in an aviation accident near Bordeaux, OF, France. No fatalities were reported. Investigators recorded the probable cause as: A No. 1 (left) engine low pressure compressor (LPC) stage 1 integrally bladed rotor (IBR) separation due to a high cycle fatigue crack (HCF) that originated at the runout of an airfoil leading edge root radius. This summary draws on records from NTSB; 7 related events involving the same aircraft type or operator are linked below.

SourcesNTSBPrimary reportUpdated 2026-08-03Data APIEditorial standards
AIRBUS A220 300
Photo: Delta News Hub / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Probable cause

A No. 1 (left) engine low pressure compressor (LPC) stage 1 integrally bladed rotor (IBR) separation due to a high cycle fatigue crack (HCF) that originated at the runout of an airfoil leading edge root radius. The HCF crack developed because of a mechanically coupled LPC stage 3 and stage 1 IBR mode excitation and blade flutter response. The excitation was driven by an acoustic tone generated by turbulent airflow passing over the 2.5 bleed valve duct cavity while the engine was operating at high speeds in specific flight conditions. A primary contributor to the failure mode was an electronic engine control (EEC) software update that changed the LPC vane schedule and increased the likelihood of LPC stage 1 IBR blade flutter onset within the engine operating range.

— NTSB Determination

Contributing factors

Compressor section — FailureDesign