Bird Strike Prompts 787 Diversion

Early on Sunday, an incident was reported at Rome’s Fiumicino airport. A Hainan Airlines Boeing 787 was scheduled to depart at 9:55 a.m. Flight HU438, bound for Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, was carrying 249 passengers and 16 crew members.

The aircraft, registered as B-1119, reportedly suffered a bird strike to its right engine soon after take-off, the airline’s Twiter/X account confirmed. The subject aircraft is equipped with two General Electric Genx-1Bs.

Hainan Airlines flight HU438 flight path on Sunday (Photo: Flightradar24)

Shortly after departure, the engine appeared to be sending loud noises and unusual bursts of flame as observed by onlookers. The crew made the decision to stop the climb and the aircraft entered a holding pattern to dump fuel.

The airline reported that the jet landed safely at 11:06 a.m. local time, about an hour after takeoff. All passengers disembarked safely with no injuries reported.

NOV 11: Hainan Airlines Boeing 787-9 (B-1119, built 2018) experienced a series of engine surges in the early climb-out of runway 16R at Rome-Intl AP (LIRF), Italy. Flight #HU438 to Shenzhen entered a holding pattern and safely returned to land 55 min later. pic.twitter.com/EK7aX2Etb6

— JACDECNews (@JacdecNews) November 10, 2024

About Hainan

Hainan Airlines is the fourth biggest carrier based in China. Founded in 1989, it has grown significantly in scale over the past 20 years, similar to the Chinese ‘Big Three’ airlines of Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern. Contrary to those though, it went through a bankruptcy restructuring announced in January 2021.

Hainan Airlines’ network in 2024 (Photo: flightconnections.com)

The airline operates a single-type narrowbody fleet of close to 150 Boeing 737 aircraft, split between the MAX 8 and older -800NG variants. Its widebody fleet comprises of Airbus A330s and Boeing 787s.

Currently, the carrier’s 787 aircraft can be seen operating to multiple European, North American, and Australasian destinations. Most are operated from the Beijing Capital International Airport and Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport.

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Filip Kopeć

A passionate aviation enthusiast that started off his career as an aerospace engineer, but found his true calling on the commercial side of the airline business. Now as a finance guy among avgeeks and an avgeek among finance guys, he has experience working in the Revenue Divisions of three airlines. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, but admittedly sometimes is more about the journey than the destination.

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