ANAC, Brazilian aviation regulator, issues a directive instructing Embraer 190-E2 operators to limit trust and climb settings at high altitude after a series of failures on similarly engined Airbus A220s.
The directive addresses E190s with Pratt & Whitney PW1900G engines. According to ANAC, they are susceptible to the same problem as PW1500G fitted on A220. The new operating limit will limit E190-E2s engine thrust to 96% of N1 while flying above 33000 ft but will not be applicable during emergency conditions.
A number of Airbus A220 suffered inflight engine shutdowns resulting from the failure of the low-pressure compressor. While the exact issue is not yet clear, investigations showed that high thrust settings and high altitudes contributed to the shutdowns.
While Canadian authorities already issued a similar emergency directive limiting thrust capacity at high altitudes aimed at A220-100 and A220-300 pilots, Pratt & Whitney announced they are going to offer a software update that will address this issue and remove the necessity to perform lengthy inspections of the engines.