Air Canada Boeing 737-8 MAX suffers hydraulic fault; shuts down left-hand engine on return to service flight

By
Bart Noëth
-
192
22750

On 22 December, an Air Canada Boeing 737-8 MAX (registered C-FSNQ) was returning to the air after storage at Marana Pinal, Arizona, United States for a flight to Montreal, Canada. The aircraft carried no passengers, only 3 crew members. 

Just after take-off, the crew received a left engine hydraulic low pressure indication. The crew and airline dispatch/engineering controllers initially decided to continue to Montreal but the crew received an indication of a fuel imbalance from the left-hand wing and shut the left hand engine down. The crew declared a PAN PAN emergency and diverted to nearby Tucson for a safe landing. (source: Canada B38M near Tucson on Dec 22nd 2020, hydraulic fault and fuel imbalance, engine shut down in flight – The Aviation Herald)

At first reporting, Aviation24.be wrote about a left-hand engine fault, but the story is more complex. Simon Hradecky from The Aviation Herald explains: “There was no engine fault as such. There was a hydraulic fault in the left engine system, but the engine continued to run, and the crew wanted to continue to destination. But then they received a fuel imbalance and decided to shut the engine down according to QRH (no engine fault, but the suspicion of a fuel leak).”

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192 COMMENTS

  59. Engine Failure or Engine fault?

    None involved.

    A hydraulic fault, and a fuel imbalance, but no engine fault at all. The fuel imbalance caused the engine to shut down. Very inaccurate report, I am afraid to say. If you copy from The Aviation Herald, remain precise, please.

  62. So the “most secure model ever” aircraft (after the software upgrade, according to Boeing) had to return and cancel its flight… I wonder what the FAA think about this incident.

  191. Boeing and the FAA, along with the Trump administration have been rushing to get the Max 737-8 max back to flying conditions because of cancellations it has been having during the last twenty months. More research needs to be done, before another accident happens.

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