Reports have emerged that a Johannesburg-bound Kenya Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Tanzania after one of its engines burst into flames.

The Dreamliner aircraft carrying 142 passengers and 10 crew members en-route to South Africa, from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) managed to land safely, thus averting a possible disaster.

However, questions have been raised on how Kenya Airways handled the emergency situation.

The Daily Nation reports that an internal investigation into the incident which happened on February 12th, 2019, has revealed that there was laxity at KQ’s operations control center.

The report published on Tuesday says that the national airline’s operations control center failed to provide necessary assistance to the captains during the emergency.

The duty manager at the control center allegedly had no flight plan for the Kenya Airway’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight.

The said manager reportedly advised the plane’s pilots to return to JKIA despite having no flight plan. 

“The report faulted the OCC for advising the pilot to return to Nairobi when they did not even know the exact location of the plane and also for not having a checklist to refer to on the next course of action when an aircraft has an in-flight problem,” the report says.

KQ said the aircraft developed mechanical problem mid-air and that a team of engineers were sent to Dar es Salaam to assess the situation.

The engineers reportedly established that the plane developed a problem on one of its engines, and the aircraft was cleared to fly again after the issue was fixed.

Responding to queries about the incident, KQ CEO Sabastian Mikosz said engineers identified the problem and recommended that the affected engine be replaced. 

“The crew shut down the engine as per procedure and diverted to Dar es Salaam. Our engineers travelled to Dar es Salaam to assess the engine and determined that it needed to be changed,” CEO Sebastian Mikosz told the Nation at that time.

The airline initially downplayed the magnitude of the incident, but the internal probe has revealed that the engine actually caught fire, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing in Tanzania after shutting it down.

“The crew then completed the remainder of the checklist items and opted to divert to the nearest suitable airport, which was Dar-es-Salaam (HTDA),” the report reads in part.

The plane touched the ground in Dar es Salaam at 1:40 pm, 35 minutes after it left JKIA.

The flight had arrived in Nairobi from New York at 7 am as flight KQ 003 before being deployed to OR-Tambo Airport at 1:05 pm as flight KQ 762.

The plane, which is one of KQ’s seven Dreamliners, has two General Electric GEnex engines and is just four years old. 

The engine that caught fire had been reinstalled seven months earlier, after being taken back to the manufacturer for repairs. The affected engine has since been flown to the US for repairs.