A Lufthansa Boeing 747-430 registration D-ABVD flight LH755 from Bangalore, India to Frankfurt, Germany and with 288 passengers and 18 crew, was grounded early this morning due to a technical fault in engine 2 (left in-board).
After push back as the engines were being started up the flight commander experienced a fault in engine 2. The airline’s ground engineer tried to rectify the fault in the GE CF6-80C2B1F engine but to no avail. Passengers were disembarked normally around 07:10 local after spending four hours on board the aircraft.
All passengers have been re-routed on alternate Lufthansa flights as well as alternate airlines.
Despite having a great time slot earlier, in 2009 Lufthansa changed its flight schedule, and their Frankfurt flight now departs at 03:30, thus making it the last flight amongst European carriers.
Unlike most foreign airlines, Lufthansa maintains an extensive technical presence in India but the parts required are not available. A team along with the parts is already en-route on LH754 and should land around 01:30 early tomorrow morning.
To add to Lufthansa woes, its partner Air India has a 747 qualified engineering presence in Bangalore and a fleet of Boeing 747-400s in Mumbai, but those aircraft are equipped with Pratt and Whitney PW4056 engines.