Uganda continues building its technical, international aviation capabilities, with the latest step seeing young technicians mostly trained locally, successfully removing the engine off the Bombardier passenger for it to be taken to manufacturer-approved facility for overhaul.
The move will save the national carrier some $300,000 that would have been lost/spent if the entire aircraft was to be taken to advanced workshops for the overhaul to be carried out. Now that the national technicians can conduct the delicate operation of extricating the engine by disconnecting the thousands of connections and fitting on another to compete the intricate process, the plane can continue in service as the company awaits the return of the overhauled engine.
The engineering milestone was successfully completed on Friday afternoon by the Uganda Airlines maintenance team, nearly half of them young ladies, to the amazement of local media teams that witnessed the in-house engine change on the CRJ900 aircraft.
This successful execution of the engine change operation completely and independently by local company staff was the first by the national carrier since getting its certification of Approved Maintenance Organization in 2024.
The technicians successfully removed the left hand side General Electric CF34-8C5 engine of aircraft 5X-KNP which they replaced with a spare. They first detached the engine from its mounts and then delicately disconnected a web of tubes, pipes and electronic systems of the Quick Engine Change kit which they connected to the replacement engine that was hoisted into position and secured to the aircraft for extensive safety check to be run.
Uganda Airlines chief Executive ,Jenifer Bamuturaki and the chief engineer Peter Emuge heartily cheered their youthful team for a mission well accomplished.
Uganda Airlines had adopted the practice of changing the engines for maintenance slights ahead of schedule to ensure seamless continuity of operations.
Conducting the engine change in-house has will drastically reduce the turnaround time it would take to fly the aircraft abroad for the procedure and now the aircraft will be retuning to service in five days. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of dollars will be saved on each such single operation.
