The Civil Aviation Authority (AACM) received the written notification of the inflight turn back incident from Aerostan Cargo this afternoon, the incident of which was due to an engine failure of the aircraft.

The incident took place at 13:16 on 23 November 2022. Some time after taking off from the runway of Macau International Airport, the cockpit control panel of the aircraft indicated fire on engine No. 2. The captain immediately performed trouble shooting in accordance with the operations procedures, shut down engine No. 2, dumped fuel to allow the aircraft to reach the weight level safe for landing, and requested Macau International Airport for emergency landing.  Upon receipt of the notification, the airport activated the Emergency Operations Centre at 13:46 to prepare for the contingency work. The cargo aircraft eventually landed safely on the runway at 13:59. The airport firefighting crew put off the engine fire upon request by the captain and the aircraft was then towed to the apron. The incident did not cause any injuries to the flight crew. After assessing that the aircraft did not have other safety concerns, the Emergency Operations Centre was deactivated at 14:44 and the airport resumed normal operations.

The cargo flight was destined to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan from Macao, with flight number BSC4053 and aircraft type Boeing 747-200F.

AACM received the written notification from Aerostan Cargo in today’s afternoon. The airline also filed in their technical assessment which was done in accordance with the operations manual, confirmed that they had performed safety measures to the fan blades of engine No. 2 and the aircraft can operate ferry flight with 3 operative engines. Furthermore, the State Civil Aviation Agency under the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan notified AACM this afternoon of their approval of the aircraft’s ferry flight for return. Having assessed that the above actions are sufficient to ensure that the aircraft can fly in a safe manner, and having also considered that the current epidemic measures in Macao do not allow a foreign airline to fly in technical people and the new aircraft parts easily within a short period of time to enable similar repair to perform in Macao, in order to facilitate Aerostan Cargo to carry out the repair work at the earliest time, AACM granted approval to the airline to allow the aircraft to depart from Macao International Airport tonight.