Major airline grounds Airbus A350 fleet, citing faulty engine component

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.

Cathay Pacific is one of the largest operators of the A350-1000, with 18 of them. It also has 30 of the smaller, more popular A350-900 planes, which were also grounded for inspection. Both planes are powered exclusively by engines from British manufacturer Rolls-Royce.

Rolls-Royce said Hong Kong authorities had started an investigation and that it was “committed to working closely with the airline, aircraft manufacturer and the relevant authorities to support their efforts.” It said engine components could be replaced while the engine remained on-wing and that it would keep other airlines informed of developments.

Rolls-Royce shares opened higher in London on Tuesday after falling 6.5% on Monday.

Airbus, which is based in France, said it was working closely with Rolls-Royce and Cathay Pacific but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

Hong Kong’s civil aviation authority did not respond to a request for comment.

Cathay Pacific said Tuesday that three of the planes had already been repaired, adding that all aircraft would be back in service by Saturday. The airline did not specify which engine component had failed or the models of the 15 aircraft that required repairs.

There are dozens of A350-1000 jets in operation worldwide, with the biggest operators of the European aircraft including Qatar Airways, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. The airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Tokyo-based Japan Airlines, which operates five Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, said Tuesday that as a precaution it would conduct inspections during scheduled maintenance but that it did not anticipate any flight delays or cancellations.

Airlines have been looking to Airbus as its only major competitor, American plane manufacturer Boeing, has faced a series of safety issues including multiple crashes involving its 737 Max planes and the midair blowout of a door plug in January.

Airbus also came under scrutiny earlier this year when the Federal Aviation Administration said it was looking into allegations that both Airbus and Boeing may have used titanium in their planes that was sold using fake documents. Both companies said the safety of their planes was unaffected.