The
Australian airline, Qantas, has said it has found “slight anomalies”
on three Airbus A380 engines and is keeping its fleet of six passenger jets
grounded for further checks.
Chief
executive Alan Joyce said there “was oil where oil shouldn’t be on the
engines” of two of the super-jumbos.
Qantas
was “trying to check what the cause of that would be”, he added.
A
similar engine broke apart in flight on Thursday, forcing a Qantas A380 to make
an emergency landing in Singapore.
After
the incident – the first since the aircraft came into service in 2007 – the
airline began checking their Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines.
Mr
Joyce said engineers had found oil in three engines, which was unusual given
that they were only two years old.
“We
are keeping an open mind on it but… We think it could have been a materials
issue on the engine, or a design issue.”
Mr
Joyce said all of the airlines A380s would likely be grounded for at least
another 72 hours.
“We
still believe with the progress we are making – this is days not weeks – but we
will take as long as it needs to in order that we are absolutely comfortable
the aircraft is safe to fly,” he added.
In
an unrelated incident on Friday, a Qantas Boeing 747 – also equipped with
Rolls-Royce engines – was forced to return to Singapore with an engine problem
after taking off.
Mr
Joyce said it was “not a safety issue” and that there were no plans
to ground the airline’s fleet of 747s.
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