Why Cathay Pacific Is Investigating Its A350 Fleet

Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. canceled dozens of flights Tuesday after detecting an engine fault in one of its Airbus SE A350 aircraft. The mid-flight discovery of the problem forced the Zurich-bound flight to return to the carrier’s base in Hong Kong.

Cathay Pacific flight CX383 took off shortly after midnight on Monday, bound for Zurich. It didn’t get far however. Just minutes after departure, the A350 aircraft entered a holding pattern just south of Hong Kong before returning to the airport a short while later, according to FlightRadar. Hong Kong’s flag carrier later said the plane was forced to return because of an engine component failure. A subsequent check of the fleet uncovered “a number of the same engine components that need to be replaced,” the company said in a statement.