Carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) materials are of rising interest for the aerospace and aviation industry in order to achieve objectives towards reduced emissions, resource conservation and cost efficiency. Their typically layered and adaptable material structure offers the possibility to integrate functional elements. Especially electrical units for sensing or actuating can be utilized for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. The novel Tailored Embeddable Sensor Actuator Layer (TEmSAL) technology for high-performance aerospace composites is utilised to instrument a generic full scale engine containment section with integrated piezo ceramic sensor elements. A tailored sensor network layout based on the structures eigenmodes is developed and aspects of the manufacturing and embedding of the functional element grid are addressed. The results of self-sensing experiments, exploiting the inverse piezoelectric effect in a pitch-catch setup and external excitation test results are presented and discussed. Impact sensing capabilities are explored by exposing the structure to a generic linear fan blade off (LFBO) impact at a velocity of 120 m/s. For this, an innovative setup is developed and discussed, including the impactor and sabot system as well as an adaptable fixture setup to mount the generic containment segment specimen and customize the impact angle. Test results are presented and the sensor performance is discussed.