The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is planning to issue an order requiring Airbus A350-1000 operators to inspect the aircraft’s engines, according to the AFP and Aviation Week. Coming just days after Cathay Pacific was forced to ground most of its A350 fleet, the regulator said the order was in response to an engine fire incident on Cathay flight 383 earlier this month.
On September 1, the flight from Hong Kong to Zurich — operated by an Airbus A350-1000 — suffered an engine fire on one of its Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97s. The jet safely returned to Hong Kong.
Following the incident, Cathay Pacific inspected its fleet of 30 A350-900s and 18 A350-1000s, finding defective fuel hoses on 15 aircraft. The Hong Kong-based airline has been forced to cancel 90 flights so far this week as a result of the engine issues.
“EASA is taking precautionary measures to prevent any further similar occurrence,” EASA said in a statement to the AFP. “We will require a one-time fleet inspection, which may be applicable only to a portion of the A350 fleet.”
European airlines have approximately 155 A350 aircraft currently in service per Cirium Fleet Analyzer data. The emergency airworthiness directive only applies to the larger A350-1000 variant with Trent XWB-97 engines.
