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A cleaning process leading to fuel hose degradation during refurbishment may have caused a recent engine fire on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350, the EU Aviation Safety Agency said Thursday. EASA said it had widened in an airworthiness directive the number of engine variants potentially affected by the apparent defect, which include Rolls-Royce engines powering both A350-900s and A350-1000s. Cathay briefly grounded its fleet of A350s for inspections and repairs after a Zurich-bound plane was forced to turn around shortly after take-off and head back to Hong Kong on September 2. The results of a Hong Kong probe released earlier Thursday said the defect, which led to the cancellation of dozens of Cathay Pacific flights this month, could have escalated into ‘extensive damage’. Inspections found that components on 15 of the 48 planes in the fleet of A350s, powered by engines from the British manufacturer Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC, had to be replaced. A post-flight examination of the Zurich-bound plane found that a fuel hose had ruptured, as evidenced by a ‘discernible hole’, burn marks and ‘black soot observed on the aft section of the core engine’. The Hong Kong report released by the Air Accident Investigation Authority found the fuel could have leaked through the ruptured hose and resulted in a fire that would have spread to surrounding areas, ‘potentially causing extensive damage to the aircraft’ in an incident the AAIA categorised as ‘serious’. Responding to the report, Rolls-Royce said it was continuing ‘to work closely’ with regulators ‘to support the ongoing investigation’. In issuing a new airworthiness directive for Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines fitted on Airbus A350 to supersede one issued directly following the incident the EASA stated that ‘in-service and in-shop inspections since then have identified that a specific cleaning process available during engine refurbishment may lead to fuel manifold main fuel hose degradation’. ‘The new AD responds to this development.’ The AAIA report found that five additional fuel hoses in the Zurich-bound plane which was manufactured in 2019 were found to have either ‘frayed metal braids or collapsed structures’. To address the issue, AAIA recommended that EASA require Rolls-Royce to ‘develop continuing airworthiness information, including but not limited to, inspection requirements of the secondary fuel manifold hoses’ of the engines in question. source: AFP Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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