MOSCOW – A long-distance Boeing 777 plane made an emergency landing in Moscow on Friday after pilots received an alert indicator of possible engine failure, Russian officials said, reviving concerns about Boeing planes.
An engine failed last week on another Boeing 777, spreading debris over the Denver area, while a similar accident occurred on a Boeing 747 cargo plane over the Netherlands. Both planes managed to land safely.
Both equipment failures involved Pratt & Whitney engines, raising concerns about metal fatigue in the fan blades of the engines, some dating from the mid-1990s. But the plane that landed in Moscow was equipped with different engines, from General Electric.
The plane, operated by Russian company Rossiya Airlines, was flying from Hong Kong to Madrid when it was diverted to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, just before 5 am local time.
A regional division of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported the landing on its website. The airport director had alerted the emergency services because “an instrument light was triggered due to a failure of the left engine control channel”.
The plane was being operated primarily as a cargo flight, carrying 36 metric tons of cargo and 25 people, the report said. “The aircraft landed safely and no one was injured,” he said.
It was not clear whether the engine really did not work well or if the instrument light was activated incorrectly. The Russian report also did not clarify whether the pilots turned off the engine before landing.
Boeing said on Sunday that all 128 of its 777 jets equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines of the type involved in the Colorado incident, the PW4000 series, would be landed worldwide. The 747 involved in the Netherlands accident was powered by a different type of Pratt & Whitney engine.
Pratt & Whitney engines were also the focus of concern in an episode in December, when an engine problem forced a Japan Airlines plane to turn around just after taking off from Okinawa.
Rossiya Airlines is part of the national flag carrier Aeroflot and, like its parent company, operates a fleet composed primarily of Western planes. It flies 10 Boeing 777 planes, according to the airline’s website. Boeing and Rossiya Airlines did not return calls seeking comment on the incident.