(Bloomberg) -- The European Union Aviation Safety Agency will require one-time inspections of Airbus SE A350 engines after a midair fire on a Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. flight forced the airline to temporarily ground some aircraft.
Operators must check for damage in flexible fuel hose connections inside engines powering the A350-1000 over the next three to 30 days, depending on the the individual engine’s history, EASA said in a statement late Thursday. In total, 86 A350-1000 aircraft are in service worldwide.
Airbus and Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, which makes the Trent XWB engines that power the A350 model, said earlier that they were cooperating with the agency. EASA said inspections are “not warranted at this stage” for a version of the engine that is used on the smaller A350-900 jetliner.
EASA’s action marks the first official confirmation that an engine fire broke out in the incident at the start of this week, causing Flight CX383 to turn around and return to Hong Kong shortly after takeoff for Zurich. The fire was quickly detected and extinguished, the regulator said.
In the statement, EASA Executive Director Florian Guillermet said the directive is a “precautionary measure” based on information gathered from the preliminary investigation of the Cathay Pacific incident and findings from the airline’s own inspections.
The checks aim to identify and remove potentially compromised high pressure fuel hoses from service, EASA said earlier on Thursday.
Rolls-Royce shares fell 0.6% in London on Thursday, bringing its losses for the week to 3.7%. Airbus slipped 1.4%.
The enginemaker is working with customers and suppliers to mitigate any disruption caused by the inspections, the company said in a statement. Airbus said it was working with EASA and Rolls.
Cathay Pacific, which had to cancel flights to inspect its fleet, has said that 15 of its 48 A350s had defective fuel hoses requiring replacement. It was targeting getting all of those widebody jets back in service by Saturday.
Japan Airlines finished checks on all five of its A350-1000s and found no issues. It also started undertaking checks on its 15 of the smaller -900 model, with 10 completed and cleared.
Singapore Airlines Ltd., the largest operator globally of the A350 with 64 jets, said it started checks, and Etihad said Thursday it was undertaking inspections and had found no issues.
--With assistance from Danny Lee and Leen Al-Rashdan.
(Updates with EASA directive details from the second paragraph.)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
