TOKYO: Japan Airlines (JAL) said on Wednesday it was conducting its own inspections of engines on its Airbus A350-1000 planes, after Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways identified an engine part failure on one of its flights.

By Tuesday, JAL had conducted in-house special inspections of three of the engines made by Rolls-Royce and they were found to be safe, a spokesperson for the Japanese airline said.

“The remaining two aircraft are scheduled to undergo inspections today (Wednesday) as soon as they return to Haneda Airport,” the spokesperson added. Tokyo-based JAL has five A350-1000s that are all less than a year old.

Cathay Pacific said on Tuesday it had inspected its entire Airbus A350 fleet of 48 planes after the in-flight failure of an engine part and found 15 aircraft with components that needed replacement.

A person familiar with the matter said a leak in a fuel system appeared to have caused a brief engine fire that was quickly extinguished by the crew of a Zurich-bound Cathay Pacific A350-1000 on Monday. 

Reuters