Air France flight turns back to Osaka after malfunction

The damage to the nose of the Air France aircraft can be seen at this link...https://news.tv-asahi.co.jp/news_society/articles/000301070.html

None of the 324 passengers and crew were injured, but the aircraft's leading edge was damaged

What is the "leading edge" of an airplane? Do they mean the nose? A wing?

Thanks, WeiWei.

@EFD - Yes, a lot more costs in fuel, but if the plane is full with passengers and cargo then the costs are around the same as before. Russian overfly rights were extortionate since they opened the airspace late 80's/early 90's. The problem for the airlines is fleet utilisation with the planes being away from home base for so long. It's a lovely flight going though, its quite stunning up in the Canadian NT and Greenland on the way to Europe especially as its summer (compared to my flight earlier in the year), I was on a flight last week. Its not quite as interesting coming back on the Southern Route sadly - a lot of Rocks and Sand as over K'Stan and Mongolia.

Pilot spent hours dumping most of the fuel in the tanks over the Pacific Ocean before the plane could safely land.

Needed to fly for some time to spend enough fuel befofe landing for safety reasons.

KIX-CDG flight flying over the Pacific? That's not something you would heard before 2022.

Going way, WAY up north over the pole to avoid Russian airspace now that it is closed off. Adds a couple hours to the flight (and thousands of Euros in fuel costs.)

Mark

Bird Impact? the leading edge is damaged!? glad the craft returned safely.

Bird strike on the nose. Nose cone completely collapsed with damage to the weather radar contained inside and pitot tubes located nearby. Must have been a sizeable bird to do that much damage.

KIX-CDG flight flying over the Pacific? That's not something you would heard before 2022.

Sorry There is a typo in the link and edit is not possible, the date should be 20230528 and not 20230538. Anyway easy to find by searching with the flight number AF 291.

I can't seem to use that link, WeiWei.

Bird Impact? the leading edge is damaged!? glad the craft returned safely.

You can see the flight path at

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFR291/history/20230538/0145Z/RJBB/RJBB

No unnecessary loops are visible. They reduced speed to half after turning back.

Took off at 11:15, turned back 35 minutes later. With 35 minutes to make a return journey, the plane must have spent 2 hours flying around if it didn't land till 2:25.