Single part responsible for A380 engine blow-out

Engine maker Rolls-Royce says one faulty part caused the dramatic engine failure.

Travel Insurance News - 15/11/2010

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Engine maker Rolls-Royce has said the dramatic blow out of an engine on a Qantas Airbus A380 was caused by one faulty part. The engine failure about 15 minutes after the jet departed from Singapore Airport, forced the superjumbo to return to the airport and make an emergency landing.

Rolls-Royce said the problem exists only on its Trent 900 engine series and there is no such problem with any of its other engine models. The engine failure on 4 November led to Qantas grounding all of its A380s while inspections were performed. Other airlines flying the A380 also implemented safety checks. Singapore Airlines said it was replacing three engines on its A380s after finding oil leaks.

Though none of the 459 people aboard the Qantas jet were injured, the incident triggered a frantic search for the cause of the problem, as well as broken parts of the engine that rained down on an Indonesian island after the engine blow out. Following investigation, Rolls-Royce said it had ‘two key conclusions’.

The first of these is that only the Trent 900 suffers from the problem that led to the engine blow out. The second conclusion is that the failure of the engine was confined to one specific engine component. This fault led to an oil fire in the engine and a loss of turbine pressure. Rolls-Royce says the steps it is implementing to correct the fault would led its customers progressively bring their entire fleets back into service.

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