Qantas finds oil leaks in A380 engines
Qantas says its fleet of A380 airbuses will remain grounded for at least the next few days as investigations continue into last week’s mid-air engine failure.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce announced that oil leaks have been discovered in three engines on three different aircraft.
“Qantas will not return its A380 fleet to service until confident the issues have been identified and resolved,” Mr Joyce said.
“The oil leaks were beyond normal tolerances. So Rolls-Royce and our engineers have looked at what we have gathered as an accepted level and they have passed that threshold.
“All of these engines are new engines.The engines are not performing to the parameters that you would expect with this.” Mr Joyce said.
“We are not going to take any risks whatsoever. We want to make sure we have a 100 per cent safe operation.” Alan Joyce, Qantas CEO
The Australian airline says the engines with the oil leaks are being replaced but more investigations are needed before the planes can be cleared to fly.
“Those engines have been removed from the aircraft in question and Rolls-Royce are using those engines to test them and look for – could this be the real cause of the QF32 incident last week?” he said.
Qantas grounded its six A380s last Thursday after an engine failed during flight, scattering debris over Indonesia’s Batam island and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Singapore with 459 passengers and crew on board.
Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, which also use A380s fitted with Rolls-Royce’s Trent 900 engines, also grounded their airbuses last week but have since cleared them for flights after checks.
Mr Joyce said tests would be extensive and could take up to weeks.
“We are not going to take any risks whatsoever. We want to make sure we have a 100 per cent safe operation.
“We will take as long as it needs to in order that we are absolutely comfortable the aircraft is safe to fly,” he said.
Shares in Rolls-Royce suffered another shares slump today, after plunging almost 5 per cent last week. Its market value has fallen more then £1.5bn since the incident.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is leading the international investigation, is appealing for help from residents of Indonesia’s Batam island to find a missing piece of a turbine disc.