Lufthansa Aircraft Returns To Airport After Crew Shuts Engine Down

The Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 aircraft with 341 passengers onboard was forced to return to its origin airport after 5 hours of flight due to a malfunctioning engine of the aircraft.

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A Lufthansa aircraft was forced to return to Frankfurt Airport after experiencing a technical glitch that required the crew to shut down one of the engines on the plane. The incident occurred with a Boeing 747-400 aircraft that operates on a quad-engine setup. At the time of the incident, the aircraft departed from Frankfurt and was on its way to Seoul-Incheon International Airport. Based on The Aviation Herald's report, the Boeing aircraft had irregularities with oil pressure.

After analyzing the problem with the aircraft, the crew decided to shut down one of the engines on the plane. The aircraft turned back toward the airport after 5 hours of flight into the 11-hour journey. The aircraft returned to the airport on three engines and made a safe landing. During the flight, the aircraft had 341 passengers on board, as per Aviation24's report. It is to be noted that no injuries were reported and the passengers were rebooked onto another flight.

Following an overnight stay on the ground in Frankfurt, D-ABTL resumed service the next evening as LH732 to Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG), reports Simple Flying.

The aircraft has experienced a number of minor incidents over the course of its 21 years of service, from a lightning strike in 2011 to its most recent in 2020, which was another "flight to nowhere," with the then-18-year-old aircraft experiencing an oxygen system leak during a flight to Rio de Janeiro International Airport (GIG). Although pressurization was said to have been normal during the flight, it was decided to drop to FL140 and return to Frankfurt as a precaution.

A similar occurrence involving a different Lufthansa aircraft—this time an Airbus A321-100—occurred on a brief flight between Hamburg Airport (HAM) and Frankfurt less than a month ago.