A321 flight crew reported fuel issue followed by engine failure inflight.
Synopsis
A321 flight crew reported fuel issue followed by engine failure inflight.
Narrative
About an hour into our flight; received an ECAM message of FUEL F. USED/FOB DISAGREE. Using the non-normal philosophy; it led us to the appropriate QRH procedure. We assessed the situation by monitoring fuel burn; fuel balance; FOB change; fuel over waypoint; etc. Inflight crew did a visual out the side windows and did not notice anything related to a fuel leak near the wings or engines. Captain called Dispatch/Maintenance Control to discuss. FOB seemed to be decreasing at an abnormal rate. We decided to return back to origin with alternative airports as options if needed. At this point; through the conversations that were had; there was some confusion as to if this was an actual fuel leak. With both wing tanks being balanced and maintaining balance through center tank transferring along with some raised doubting questions in regards to it being an indicator problem instead of fuel leak. This led us to not further the QRH procedure past the step of being a confirmed fuel leak. We continued to origin airport. Below 10;000 ft. we started slowing to 210 kts. and while engines were at idle; there was a yawing motion with some vibration followed by an ENG 1 FAIL message. We completed ECAM action items; [requested priority handling]; briefed inflight crew on briefing items for our situation; and briefed the passengers. After landing; Crash Fire Rescue (CFR) assessed our engine and with no fire risk; we continued to the gate. Airport Operations was advised to make aware to Maintenance Control of the engine failure.
Second reporter narrative
About 50 minutes into the flight ZZZ to ZZZ1 at FL350 we had an ECAM message FUEL F. USED/FOB DISAGREE. The First Officer (FO) pilot monitoring (PM) did some calculations and it was determined that we were indeed loosing fuel at about 500 pounds every 15 minutes. This led to a QRH procedure for FUEL LEAK and we could not ascertain the leak source including asking inflight to look out for anything obvious but inflight reported that they did not see anything leaking. After a call with Dispatch and Maintenance Control we decided to turn around and divert back to ZZZ. We showed estimated fuel on board at ZZZ above 13500 but steadily decreasing out of the left tank. Fuel imbalance was about 2000 pounds at ZZZ. All engine indications were normal including fuel flows. If we needed a good Divert airport along our route we could divert to ZZZ1 if needed. After briefing Inflight and passengers a normal approach and ILS XXL was executed until about 9000 ft. on XXL approach we got a ENG 1 FAIL. We [requested priority handling] at this point and accomplished as much of the ECAM procedure as we had time. An uneventful single engine approach and landing were accomplished. Crash Fire Rescue (CFR) looked over the left engine after landing and nothing adverse was seen. We taxied into the gate and deplaned normally. On the post flight walk around we noticed fuel dripping from the bottom of the number one engine cowl.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.