Hong Kong's air safety authority said Thursday that a defect in an engine component of a Cathay Pacific Airways Airbus A350 that caused a fire, forcing a Zurich-bound flight to return to Hong Kong, could have caused ''extensive damage'' to the aircraft.

Europe's aviation regulator on Thursday linked a recent engine fire on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350 to a possible problem with the maintenance of its Rolls-Royce engines.The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) earlier this month ordered airlines to carry out visual inspections on Rolls-Royce XWB-97 engines after the incident involving a Zurich-bound Airbus A350-1000 on Sept 2.

Hong Kong aviation investigators say an engine problem that caused Cathay Pacific to ground its entire fleet of Airbus A350 jets for inspection earlier this month could have escalated into “extensive damage.