Both Qantas and Singapore Airlines have grounded their Airbus A380 fleets after an engine blew out mid-flight Thursday.
A Qantas A380 suffered a midair incident Thursday on the Singapore to Sydney Flight QF34. The plane had more than 450 people on board when it was forced to make an emergency landing at Singapore, trailing smoke from a blackened engine.
Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce appeared to blame the engine, made by Rolls-Royce.
“This issue, an engine failure, has been one that we haven’t seen before,” he told reporters in Sydney. “So we are obviously taking it very seriously, because it is a significant engine failure.”
Shares of Rolls-Royce dropped more than 5 percent on the news.
Analyst Richard Aboulafia, with the Teal Group, believes this incident could spell trouble for Airbus’ A350, which uses Rolls-Royce engines exclusively. Boeing’s 787 also has experienced issues with its Rolls engines recently, but that aircraft also can be ordered with General Electric engines.
Updated at 12:40 p.m.
A couple other stories to note on this:
The aircraft engineers union is blaming Qantas’ use of outsourcing for the incident. For more readthis story.
Singapore Airlines put passengers on a Boeing 777 rather than the A380 they were schedule to ride on following the incident. For more, read this story
Video of A380 engine failure
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