Brussels Airlines flight SN201 to Dakar returns to Brussels Airport

This Sunday, a Brussels Airlines Airbus A330 (OO-SFG) from Brussels Airport to Dakar Blaise Diagne returned to Belgium due to vibrations of the right hand engine (Trent 772). South of Portugal, flight SN201 made a U-turn.

The crew advised a normal landing would occur, no assistance was needed on the ground, however, they needed to burn off fuel. The aircraft descended early, entered a hold near Brussels and landed safely on Brussels’ runway 25L about 3 hours after the decision to return and about 5:10 hours after departure.

Just prior to reaching FL290 while climbing out of Brussels the crew had received a fuel trim line isolation valve failure indication associated with a fuel tank transfer fault warning. About 90 minutes later the crew decided to return due to the engine vibrations.

“A technical issue forced the crew to head back,” spokeswoman Maaike Andries said to Aviation24.be, “the aircraft was safe to continue to Dakar, but it would take longer to fix the problem at the Senegalese airport hence the decision was made. At Brussels Airport, we have our maintenance facilities.”

Passengers have been rebooked onto the next available flight, if required the airline provided hotel accommodation. Only a few days ago, OO-SFU to Kigali headed back to Brussels.

The occurrence aircraft is still on the ground in Brussels about 20 hours after landing.