Cathay passengers take 3 days to get to HK after engine failure
It will have taken nearly three days for the 375 Cathay Pacific passengers left stranded in Amsterdam on Sunday by an engine breakdown to get to Hong Kong, with the last batch due to land late this morning on flight 270.
Their ordeal was the result of the airline's third engine incident in three months. A person close to the airline said the damaged engine on the Boeing 747-400 - which was due to operate flight 270 to Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon - was three to four years old and near the end of its life.
It is understood about a quarter of the airline's engines are old.
The engine broke down when the aircraft was 50 minutes away from landing at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. The person stressed that the 377 passengers were never in danger because the four-engined plane could operate normally on three engines, and could even land safely on one.
But the aircraft needed immediate repairs and as no other airline had a spare engine available, an engine had to be flown in from Hong Kong.
As a result, the 375 passengers booked to take that flight back to Hong Kong on Sunday were delayed. Three-quarters have gradually managed to get seats with other airlines, and the remaining 91 passengers will arrive today on the repaired aircraft.
Cathay Pacific has reported the incident to the Civil Aviation Department and will submit a report explaining the breakdown soon.
The airline has been hit by several engine malfunctions in the past few months. A flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Hong Kong caught fire while landing on one engine in April and passengers had to be evacuated. In May, a Taipei-bound Boeing 747 returned to Chek Lap Kok Airport because of an engine problem.
The person close to the airline said it was not a systemic problem. 'None of the airline's engines have ever failed the international in-flight shutdown standard.' The international standard allows one engine shutdown for every 50,000 flights.
The cause of Sunday's engine failure was believed to be a broken compressor blade, but it was not yet known if age was a factor.
Aircraft engineer Johnny Chung said an old engine did not necessarily pose a safety risk if it was well-maintained and regularly inspected, and usually a carrier would use a combination of old and new engines.
The source close to Cathay Pacific said flight crews' attitude might be the reason for the recent surge in incidents. 'After the Surabaya incident, they don't want to take any chances; they also fear there will be no replacement stocks in another country if some parts failed so they are inclined to return to the original airport.'
The pilot in charge of the Surabaya flight ignored two warning signals after takeoff to continue the journey, but the airline insisted the crew complied with the operations manual.
Emergency landing
The engine of a Cathay Pacific flight from Surabaya caught fire on landing in April
The number of engine warnings ignored by the flight crew shortly after takeoff: 2
