A TransAsia Airways flight was grounded at New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, Japan, yesterday due to a failure of an auxiliary power unit on the aircraft, delaying 192 passengers on their journey to Taiwan.
Flight GE670 took off from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and landed at the Japanese airport at 12:15pm, the airline said. However, the pilots found that the aircraft’s green auxiliary hydraulic power unit had malfunctioned, causing the aircraft to be unable to move on the tarmac under its own power.
The pilots requested that the airport tow the aircraft from the runway and assist the 272 passengers onboard to disembark, the airline said.
The unit provides power to the brakes during landing, it said, adding that the aircraft is able to land safely without it.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK said in a report that the airport temporarily closed the runway the aircraft landed on so that fire department personnel could examine the aircraft for fuel leaks, which could pose a danger.
The airline said it would ground the aircraft in Japan to repair the unit, delaying 192 passengers scheduled to travel to Taiwan yesterday on the return flight.
The airline added that it has arranged the passengers to stay in a hotel before flying today on the same flight.
The company apologized for the delay and any inconvenience that the incident might have caused.
Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Flight Standards Division director Clark Lin (林俊良) said the agency would check the aircraft’s maintenance records to determine if maintenance crews had followed procedures correctly.
Lin said the airline informed the CAA that a leak of hydraulic oil had been discovered in the aircraft’s central landing gear.
He said the aircraft is an Airbus 330 plane and similar problems have been reported with this model, as well as with Airbus 320 planes.
Because of the incident, Lin said the CAA would require all carriers with Airbus 320 and 330 planes in their fleets to inspect them for similar issues.
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