An Airbus A220 engine that suffered damage during a Korean Air flight in December has been shipped to the USA for examination, according to an Airbus official.

"The engine has been shipped back to the US – to Columbus, with Pratt," says Airbus head of A220 engineering and customer support Rob Dewar.

"We'll tear down the engine," he adds. "Right now, it looks like an isolated incident but we won't know for sure until we finish the investigation with the authorities."

Dewar made his comments earlier this week but provided no other information.

"It is with us for tear down and analysis," adds P&W, which also declines further comment.

The engine was the left-side powerplant on a Korean Air A220-300 operating a flight from Busan to Nagoya on 27 December 2018. The engine failure was detected 25min into the flight, prompting the pilots to return to Busan.

Source: Cirium Dashboard