Singapore Airlines A380 returns after rolls engine shutdown: Update

A Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 flight to Hong Kong returned to its base after 20 minutes in the air when one of the plane’s four Rolls-Royce Plc Trent engines shut down, the carrier said.

The A380 with 368 passengers and 21 crew aboard landed normally at 11:17 a.m. yesterday and no one was injured, Nick Ionides, a Singapore Airlines spokesman, said in a telephone interview. The engine shut off “due to surge and high vibrations.”

 

The incident comes almost nine months after a Trent engine on an A380 operated by Qantas Airways exploded. Australian regulators said in May that Rolls-Royce had made an oil pipe too thin, with the defect causing a fracture that let oil leak and ignite, weakening a turbine disc which fractured and separated from its shaft. Rolls-Royce has since addressed the problem by replacing the defective part.

 

“It is very unlikely to be a common cause with the problems Qantas had, because clearly all the engines that are flying have had that issue resolved,” Nick Cunningham, managing partner at London-based research company Agency Partners, said today. “In-flight shutdowns are rare but not so rare that one should get overly concerned about it.”

LOOKING INTO INCIDENT

Rolls-Royce is “aware of the incident, and we work closely with Singapore Airlines to provide appropriate support and technical assistance,” Erin Atan, a spokeswoman in Singapore for the London-based engine manufacturer, said today.

 

Airbus is looking into the incident together with Rolls- Royce and the airline,’’ said Sean Lee, a spokesman for the planemaker in Singapore.

 

The Qantas engine explosion on Nov. 4 was the most significant safety issue an A380 had faced since the double- decker aircraft began passenger flights in October 2007, and it prompted scrutiny of Rolls-Royce engines.

 

Rolls-Royce fell as much as 1.4% to 643.5 pence and was down 0.4% as of 9:16 a.m. in London trading. That pared the stock’s gain this year to 6%.

 

The company is one of two providers of engines for the A380. Power plants are also available from Engine Alliance, a General Electric Co. and Pratt & Whitney venture, which supplies A380 customers such as Emirates and Air France-KLM Group.

 

Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is a unit of European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co.