Boeing 777 makes emergency Moscow landing with engine issue

A Boeing Co. 777 aircraft operated by Rossiya Airlines made an emergency landing in Moscow at 4:44 a.m. local time due to engine trouble.

Friday’s incident with the Rossiya Air flight comes less than a week after an aircraft of the same model flown by United Airlines Holdings Inc. suffered a dramatic blowout over Denver, shedding debris onto neighborhoods below.

While the Denver incident triggered a worldwide grounding of older 777 aircraft with Pratt & Whitney engines, the Rossiya cargo jet is powered by General Electric Co. turbines, according to fleet data from planespotters.net

The 15-year-old Rossiya aircraft was heading from Hong Kong to Madrid, according to an employee at Sheremetyevo International Airport, who declined to be named.

The crew of the plane requested to make the emergency landing after one of the left engine control channels failed, according to Interfax. No injuries were reported.

Neither Boeing nor Rossiya Air were immediately available for comment.

Last Saturday’s incident in Colorado involved a PW4077 engine made by Pratt, a division of Raytheon Technologies Corp. A preliminary examination of fragments from the engine suggested a crack that grew gradually over time prompted the failure.

In another incident on Feb. 20, a Boeing 747-400 cargo jet operated by Longtail Aviation suffered a failure with its Pratt & Whitney engine shortly after takeoff from Maastricht in the Netherlands.

That failure was contained, meaning debris didn’t escape laterally and damage the body of the plane, but two people on the ground were injured.

While that aircraft also had engines from Pratt’s PW4000 family, the Denver and Netherlands incidents are unrelated, according to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.