Virgin Atlantic has released a timelapse video of its engineers replacing a five-tonne engine worth millions of pounds on one of its aircraft just hours before it flew across the Atlantic.

The two minute video shows a team of six engineers from the airline working for hours to carefully remove one Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engine from the wing of an Airbus A340-600 in a hangar at London Heathrow before installing a fresh one. Jet engines are required to undergo routine maintenance after flying for a certain number of hours.

A Virgin Atlantic A340-600 on a runway Credit: Getty

The engine casing is opened and removed before the turbofan, which weighs five tonnes without fuel, is hoisted by a crane suspended from the hangar ceiling and moved aside. A waiting engine is then uncovered and installed, while the original returns to Rolls-Royce for maintenance. Each blade of the Trent 500, commonly used on A340s, generates around 900 horsepower, equivalent to a Formula 1 car.

The Virgin Atlantic plane then flew to New York later that day.

Phil Maher, executive vice president of operations at the airline, said the video was just a taste of the different jobs engineers carry out at the carrier’s 65,636 square foot hangar at the west London airport.

Jet engines are known as turbofans Credit: Getty

“When you think of Virgin Atlantic and the people who work here, more often than not, our famous cabin crew and pilots spring to mind,” he said. “However, there’s an entire team of skilled people working constantly behind the scenes to ensure that thousands of our customers enjoy safe, reliable flights every day.”

The video ends with a shot of Virgin’s crew testing the engine, before the aircraft takes off for New York.

The aircraft, registration G-VBUG, has flown a number of transatlantic routes in its first flight in 2007, including New York JFK, San Francisco and Atlanta. The A340 has four matching Rolls-Royce engines.