An engine fire on a Cathay Pacific Airbus A350 earlier this month was the result of a fuel leak and could have caused extensive damage to the plane, according to investigators. Hong Kong’s flagship airline grounded planes after being forced to turn a flight around a couple of weeks ago because of an "engine component failure".

A cleaning process leading to fuel hose degradation during refurbishment may have caused a recent Airbus A350 engine fire that triggered dozens of Cathay Pacific flight cancellations this month, the EU aviation regulator said Thursday.

The engine defect in the Airbus A350 plane that led to the cancellation of dozens of Cathay Pacific flights in early September could have escalated into "extensive damage", according to a Hong Kong probe released Thursday.