Over the weekend, a Malaysia Airlines Airbus A350 bound for Kuala Lumpur suffered an engine failure, prompting an emergency return to Tokyo.
Furthermore, information has been released regarding this incident.
Below is what we know so far…
Malaysia Airlines MH71 – Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur…
Malaysia Airlines flight MH71 is a routine scheduled flight between Tokyo Narita and Kuala Lumpur.
The aircraft involved in this incident is registered as 9M-MAD.
As per data from Planespotters.net, 9M-MAD is a 6.3 year old Airbus A350-900 that was delivered to the airline in February 2018.
Furthermore, of the A350-900 variant, Malaysia Airlines have seven of them.
Within that seven, one is parked, with the rest in commercial service, offering an average fleet age of 6.0 years.
They also have the older A330 aircraft in their fleet as well.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH71 departed Tokyo Narita at 2246 local time on May 10, and initially climbed out to Kuala Lumpur.
Upon reaching the East China Sea, the aircraft made a u-turn to Haneda with an issue onboard.
The diversion to Haneda was due to Narita being closed late at night.
Furthermore, it is understood that the aircraft landed safely without further incident at 00:48 local time on May 11.
As per The Aviation Herald, it is understood that the left-hand Rolls Royce Trent XWB failed in flight.
Aircraft Grounded For Two Days: Problem Solved…
Data from RadarBox shows that 9M-MAD, the aircraft operating Malaysia Airlines MH71 to Kuala Lumpur was grounded in Tokyo for two days following the incident.
Furthermore, on May 12, the aircraft repositioned back to KUL following the relevant fixes being done in Narita.
On that same day, the aircraft performed the MH4 service to London Heathrow, and at the time of writing (13/5/24 @ 1510 UK time), is performing the return, being MH1.
For now, things appear to be fixed with the left hand engine with no additional issues reported thus far.
Overall, with the strong reliability that the Trent XWB offers, this does appear to be a very rare incident.
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