Russian media report that a Boeing 777 plane made an emergency landing in Moscow in the early hours of Friday after the pilot reported a problem with the engine.
The Interfax news agency cited an anonymous source saying that the pilot on the flight from Hong Kong to Madrid reported a failure of one of the left engine control channels and requested an emergency landing at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport.
The plane landed safely and no one was injured, the report said. It was carrying out a “cargo-passenger” flight, Interfax said.
The flight tracking website Flightradar24 confirms that the plane operated by Russia’s state-funded Rossiya airline landed early Friday at the Moscow airport.
Earlier this month, a Boeing 777 operated by United Airlines had to make an emergency landing in Denver after one of its engines blew apart, spewing huge chunks of wreckage that landed in neighbourhoods and sports fields.
The investigation is focusing on a fan blade that appeared to be weakened by wear and tear, a development reminiscent of a fatal failure on board another plane in 2018. The event caused authorities to ground Boeing 777 models that use that engine, the Pratt & Whitney 4000-112.
Flightradar24 identified the plane that landed in Sheremetyevo on Friday as a Boeing 777-31H model, which does not use the Pratt & Whitney engines. Instead, that model uses the General Electric GE90-115B engines, according to fleet tracking site Airfleets.net.
