Pilots aborted a Delta Air Lines flight to New York on New Year's Day when an engine failed shortly after takeoff. The Boeing 767-300 had departed Madrid-Barajas Airport mid-morning on Sunday bound for the US when the CF6 engine failed.

Engine failure cuts flight to New York short

According to a report in The Aviation Herald, the aircraft was ascending through 14,000 feet when the engine failed, and the pilots stopped the climb. The 23-year-old Boeing circled Madrid for just over 20 minutes before returning to the airport and landing safely.

The plane, N173DZ, was operating flight DL127, Delta's regularly scheduled service between Madrid and New York JFK. Depending on the North Atlantic winds, the flight normally takes between seven and a half and eight and a half hours to complete.

But on the weekend, the engine failure cut the flight short. After taking off to the north, the pilots cut the climb short as the Boeing was flying over the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park.

Instead of continuing in a northwesterly direction, the plane turned back towards Madrid, flying over Majadahonda, Madrid, and down to Arganda del Rel before turning again and approaching Madrid's airport from the south. N173DZ landed without incident some 23 minutes after taking off.

A handful of incidents across a lengthy flying history

The Boeing 767-300 has only ever flown for Delta and entered service in November 1998. The jet is one of 40 Boeing 767-300s Delta flies. According to The Aviation Herald's database, N173DZ's flying history includes three other noteworthy incidents, although only one involved engine problems.

In 2009, a flight from Atlanta to Zurich was interrupted over Nova Scotia when the crew reported problems with the oxygen mask regulators. The plane initially turned back and headed towards New York's JFK Airport before the issue was resolved and the jet resumed its original tracking towards Switzerland.

Just two weeks later,  N173DZ was not long out of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and heading towards New York when the pilots reported "technical problems" and diverted to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Engineers on the ground were able to sort the issue with the CF6 engine, and the flight to New York continued later that day.

Skip forward three years to September 2012, and a tire burst when taking off from Sao Paulo/Guarulhos Airport. Debris from the burst tire damaged a flap which caused the pilots to declare an emergency shortly after takeoff and head out to sea to dump fuel before returning to land safely.

Between that incident and the weekend's engine failure, N173DZ has enjoyed a trouble-free history. According to aircraft database ch-aviation.com, as of October 31, N173DZ had flown 88,573 hours over 19,625 flight cycles.

Old planes powered by well-regarded GE engines

Delta's fleet of Boeing 767s date back to the early 1990s. A pair of CF6-80A engines initially powered the earlier 767-300s. In the late 1990s, Delta received ten extended range versions of the 767-300 (of which N173DZ is one). Those 767-300ERs came with CF6-80C2 engines.

GE's CF6 engine program has been running since 1971. The highly successful program has ten aircraft family applications and is one of the longest-running jet engine programs in commercial aviation. GE says its various CF6 engines have flown more than 460 million engine flight hours.

At the time of writing, N173DZ remains on the ground in Madrid.