Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways said yesterday it had inspected its entire Airbus A350 fleet after the in-flight failure of an engine part and found 15 aircraft with components that needed replacement.
Cathay Pacific said three of the 48 Rolls-Royce-powered planes it had inspected had already gone through successful repairs and all of the jets were expected to resume operation by Saturday. It cancelled at least 34 round-trip flights due to the disruption to its fleet.
Other airlines said they had not yet been issued instructions to examine similar engines after a part failed on one of Cathay Pacific’s A350-1000 widebody planes minutes after take-off from Hong Kong on Monday.
Data from flight tracking service FlightRadar24 showed other major operators of the A350-1000 and the smaller, more popular A350-900, appeared to be flying their aircraft normally on Tuesday.
Tokyo-based Japan Airlines (JAL), which has five A350-1000s that are all less than a year old, said it had asked Rolls-Royce for more information and had not stopped A350 flights in the meantime.
“If the engine manufacturer takes any further action, we will respond accordingly,” a JAL spokesperson said.
Qatar Airways said its fleet of 24 A350-1000s was not affected and it continued to monitor any developments.
Rolls-Royce had not yet issued a directive to airlines regarding possible inspections, according to an industry source who was not authorised to speak publicly about the matter.
Cathay Pacific said it had secured spare parts for the engine components that needed to be replaced. Rolls-Royce yesterday also noted the replacement could take place while the engine remained on-wing.
The engine manufacturer said it was committed to working closely with Cathay Pacific, Airbus and authorities conducting an investigation of the incident.
Cathay Pacific has not specified which engine component failed, but the carrier said it was the “first of its type to suffer such failure on any A350 aircraft worldwide”.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters the incident involved a problem with a fuel nozzle inside a XWB-97 engine, the Rolls-Royce model used on the A350-1000.
Experts say such problems are rare but, barring a deeper flaw, generally raise fewer alarms than the failure of one of the major rotating parts such as a turbine blade. However, any widespread further inspections could be disruptive to airlines.
Airbus said in a statement it was in contact with Rolls-Royce and Cathay Pacific and offering “full technical support”.
Singapore Airlines said it was reviewing the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-84 engines in its fleet of A350-900s as a precaution, but there was no impact on its flights. It does not have any A350-1000s.
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