MOSCOW – A long-range Boeing 777 plane made an emergency landing in Moscow on Friday after pilots received an indicator warning of possible engine outages, Russian officials said, reviving concerns about the Boeing planes.
An engine crashed into another Boeing 777 last weekend, spreading debris across the Denver area, while a similar accident occurred on a Boeing 747 cargo plane over the Netherlands. Both planes managed to land safely.
Both of these equipment faults were involved in Pratt & Whitney engines, which expressed concern about metal fatigue in the fan blades of the engines, some of which date from the mid-nineties. But the plane that landed in Moscow was equipped with different engines, manufactured by General Electric.
The plane, which is operated by a Russian company, Rossiya Airlines, was flying from Hong Kong to Madrid when it diverted to Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow shortly before five o’clock local time.
A regional division of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations reported the landing on its website. The director of the airport warned the emergency services because “an instrument key was activated because the control channel for the left engine failed.”
The report is mostly managed as a cargo flight, with 36 tons of cargo and 25 people. “The plane landed safely and no one was injured,” he said.
It was unclear whether the engine actually failed or that the instrument switched on incorrectly. The Russian report also did not make clear whether the pilots had switched off the engine before landing.
Boeing said Sunday that all 128 of its 777 aircraft equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines of the type involved in the Colorado incident, the PW4000 series, would be grounded worldwide. The 747 involved in the crash in the Netherlands is powered by another Pratt & Whitney engine.
Pratt & Whitney engines were also the point of concern in an episode in December when an engine problem forced a Japan Airlines plane to turn around shortly after taking off from Okinawa.
Rossiya Airlines is part of the national flag carrier, Aeroflot, and, like its parent company, has a fleet of mostly West-manufactured aircraft. It flies ten Boeing 777 aircraft, according to the airline’s website. Boeing and Rossiya Airlines did not immediately call back to comment on the incident.