Originally Posted by
tdracer
Often, people (including aviation professionals) will classify any uncommanded shutdown as an "automatic" shutdown - that only really means that the engine quit without any crew input.
Educated guess, based on what I know about the GE90, is that it was a gearbox issue. Something in the gearbox fails, drive is lost to the fuel pump, no fuel pump means no fuel and the engine "automatically" shuts down...
...and so tdracer on page 3 of this thread has the winning answer:
Originally Posted by The Aviation Herald
On Feb 8th 2017 The Aviation Herald received information that the angle gearbox, connecting the gear box to the N2 rotor, cracked causing the gear box to disengage, as result the high pressure fuel pumps were no longer operating causing the engine to shut down due to fuel starvation. An engine restart was not attempted in consultation with dispatch and maintenance due to ACARS messages indicating activation of the magnetic chip detector. A high power engine run is now going to commence at Iqaluit, then the aircraft is estimated to position back to Zurich.