Qantas grounds A380 fleet after in-flight engine explosion
Qantas Airways Ltd. grounded its A380 super-jumbo fleet after an engine on one of the double-decker jets exploded Thursday six minutes after it took off from Singapore, shooting shards of metal through a wing and showering debris on the Indonesian island of Batam.
The Australian carrier’s decision to immediately suspend all flights on its six A380s left passengers stranded around the world and three of the super-jumbos parked on the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport.
FOR THE RECORD:
Qantas engine explosion: An article in the Nov. 5 Business section about the explosion of an engine on a Qantas Airways A380 jet and the resulting grounding of all six of its Airbus-made super-jumbo aircraft said a video showed smoke trailing from the plane’s right inboard engine. The affected engine was on the left side. —
It also prompted some aerospace experts to question whether the engine blowout was an isolated incident, or a troubling reminder that plane makers including Airbus, which created the A380, Chicago-based Boeing Co. and their suppliers have been stretched thin by ambitious new jets such as the A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus’ A350-XWB.
“This is a company with a lot on its plate, and it’s at a serious risk of overreach here,” said aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, referring to Rolls-Royce Group, which manufactured the Trent 900 engine on the crippled Qantas jet and is creating engines for the other planes in development.
The news sent Rolls-Royce shares down 5% during trading Thursday, and provided another unwelcome blemish to its reputation for safety and first-rate design. Boeing had blamed its latest Dreamliner delay, announced in late summer, on the explosion of a Trent 1000 engine during a test in August.
“This is at a very early stage and it would be inappropriate to draw any conclusions at this time,” the British-based engine maker said in a statement.
Qantas Flight 32, which had been bound for Sydney, returned safely to Singapore 70 minutes after the engine failure, after pilots had safely dumped much of the fuel loaded for the nearly eight-hour flight.
Although nobody was injured in the incident, which was the first major scare involving an A380, safety experts marveled at the close call. Amateur video of the incident, flashed around the globe in an instant via Twitter and YouTube, showed smoke trailing from the plane’s right inboard engine and punctures to its wing.
The 2-year-old Qantas jet suffered an “uncontained engine failure,” which meant that shrapnel caused by the blowout escaped the engine’s protective metal cowling, which was also heavily damaged by the blast.
Turbine blades and other pieces of hot metal could easily have damaged the jet’s main fuel tanks, which are located in the wings, noted John Goglia, an independent safety consultant and former board member of the National Transportation Safety Board.
“It was damned close,” Goglia added.
The engine shards also could have pierced the fuselage, lowering pressure inside the aircraft cabin or injuring passengers, he noted. In fact, fragments from an exploding jet engine on a Delta Air Lines MD-80 in 1996 killed a mother and her 12-year-old son and injured seven other on board the aircraft.
As Thursday’s incident unfolded, the 440 Qantas passengers and 26 crew members on board the stricken jet remained relatively calm, witnesses said. Rosemary Hegardy, 60, of Sydney, told the Associated Press that she heard two bangs and saw shooting flames from her window seat shortly after takeoff.
“There was flames — yellow flames came out, and debris came off,” Hegardy said. “You could see black things shooting through the smoke, like bits of debris.”
As the incident unfolded, Qantas delayed two A380 flights from Los Angeles to Sydney and Melbourne, respectively. Those passengers were flown out Thursday on other aircraft. The airline was working to find other flights for passengers due to depart Thursday night, Qantas spokesman Simon Rushton said.
