Cathay Airbus engine fire linked to cleaning: EU regulator
The Peninsula
Paris: A cleaning process leading to fuel hose degradation during refurbishment may have caused a recent engine fire on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350,...
Paris: A cleaning process leading to fuel hose degradation during refurbishment may have caused a recent engine fire on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said Thursday.
EASA said it had widened in an airworthiness directive the number of engine variants potentially affected by the apparent defect, which include Rolls-Royce engines powering both A350-900s and A350-1000s.
Cathay briefly grounded its fleet of A350s for inspections and repairs after a Zurich-bound plane was forced to turn around shortly after take-off and head back to Hong Kong on September 2.
The results of a Hong Kong probe released earlier Thursday said the defect, which led to the cancellation of dozens of Cathay Pacific flights this month, could have escalated into "extensive damage".
Inspections found that components on 15 of the 48 planes in the fleet of A350s, powered by engines from the British manufacturer Rolls-Royce, had to be replaced.
