It was an amazing piece of piloting in extremely testing circumstances," a pilot colleague said. "One engine was shut down completely and the other was going on and off. They effectively landed the plane on half an engine.
That IS amazing - obviously takes a lot more skill to land an A330 on half an engine (especially the top half) than on the landing gear.
When I first heard this, I had just assumed it was a B747 - and I thought Hmmm - lost an engine.
I realized this morning it’s an Airbus A330 - and the rumor mill is saying the 2nd engine was also malfunctioning - awaiting more details but this appears to be a major incident.
One ‘report’ stated 2nd engine operating at 70 percent, another said it had been shut down also?, landing was reported at 230kts with small gear fire stopping the aircraft.
This occurred during the last 10 minutes of a 4 hour flight.
Absolutely excellent airmanship, I think we’re going to hear a lot more from this??
The only question - the article says the first engine malfunctioned as the flight was approaching cruising altitude. Why continue on into a 4+ hr flight with only one engine? Am I misreading something?
Cathay flies RR Trents on their A333 fleet?
[sarcasm font](Enter mandatory “Airbus sucks” type comment here)[/sarcasm font]
Yeah, just read thru pprune among other sites, you read correctly, it was the second engine that became a problem in the last ten minutes.
As for the first engine out, as details aren’t confirmed - I’ll guess it actually happened later in the 4 hour flight??, but we’ll know sooner or later.
Correct. They have 772-60 and 772B-60 engines on their A330 while their A340 have CFM56-4C4 engines.
Airbus… 
Keep in mind, that this can happen to any plane… Case in point, Gimli Glider (B762).
However, this does remind me of TSC236, which landed in similar fashion at the Azores, because of engine failure (albeit, fuel starvation).
I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened again. Let’s just wait for the reports to come out before just blaming it on the manufacturer (honestly, it makes one sound like a fanboy), and just be happy they made it on the ground, and everyone walked away from it.
BL.
From that article:
Hui said there had been no similar problem with the Airbus A330-300 before, and consequently a grounding of the planes was not necessary. He said the plane had been refueled in Surabaya and the investigation will include the possibility of a fuel problem.
Bold for emphasis.
In going over the TSC236 incident, let alone ACA143, CPA780 has way too many similarities to the first two incidents. Even more so now, if Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Authority is including that as part of their investigation.
BL.
Gimli Glider (B762).
Was that the 762 that did the side slip?
The Gimli Glider incident was due to a maintenance issue AND pilot error. Mx tech installed a wrong size fitting in a fuel line to one of the engines causing a fuel leak. The fuel leak caused an imbalance in the fuel tanks, so the pilots cross-fed fuel from the good tanks over to the leaky tanks allowing all of their fuel to leak out.
Actually, the Gimli Glider was strictly an error in math. This was the first 767 delivered to Air Canada that was calibrated to use liters and kilograms after Canada converted to the metric system. Both the fueler and Captain used the wrong conversion factor and only had about half as much fuel as they thought they did.
The fuel leak incident you refer to was most likely Air Transat Flight 236, an A330 that landed in the Azores after running out of fuel.
I knew that… Just didn’t remember. 
don’t know how I missed this… Oh wait… Taxes. That’s why.
Close. The pilot executed a forward slip, not a side slip. A forward slip, especially in this case, used to bleed off altitude without adding any excessive speed to the approach. A side slip requires adding speed to the approach.
BL.
Ahhhh!
Thanks tyk.
No kidding!! If it ain’t Boeing, I’m not going!
Scarebus!!!