Major airline grounds Airbus A350 fleet, citing faulty engine component
Cathay Pacific said it found 15 aircraft that needed repair after the in-flight failure of an engine part prompted it to inspect its entire Airbus A350 fleet.
HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s flagship airline said Tuesday that it had found 15 aircraft with components that needed replacement after the in-flight failure of an engine part prompted it to inspect its entire Airbus A350 fleet.
Cathay Pacific grounded 48 planes for the inspection, forcing it to cancel 24 round-trip flights on Tuesday and 10 more on Wednesday, mostly on routes within Asia. The airline said Tuesday that long-haul flights would not be affected.
The airline ordered the inspection on Monday after Flight CX383 experienced a problem shortly after takeoff from Hong Kong and turned around. The Zurich-bound flight landed safely back in Hong Kong about 75 minutes after its departure, data from the flight tracking platform FlightRadar24 showed.
Upon landing, Cathay Pacific said it had identified “an engine component failure” on the Airbus A350-1000 aircraft.
“This component was the first of its type to suffer such failure on any A350 aircraft worldwide,” the airline said in a statement Monday.
Rating: 5