A large number of incidents, involving failure of high pressure turbine blades of an advanced jet aircraft, had occurred necessitating establishment of the reasons for the alarming rate of failure. Though the technical life of the blades was specified to be 1650 hours the failures occurred after 180 to 550 hours of flying. The cast blades were made from a nickel base superalloy grade V.ZH. L-12UVD (GOST) and were air cooled through a deflector fitted inside. No increase in jet pipe temperature was noticed during any of the incidents. Blade failures in six engines were investigated. The failure mode was similar in all the cases. The results of the metallurgical analysis carried out on the failed blades are presented in this paper.