By Robert Fenner and Andrea Rothman
Qantas Airways Ltd. grounded its Airbus SAS A380 fleet after an engine exploded in mid-flight, forcing an emergency landing in Singapore.
The planes will be out of service for “as long as it takes,” Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said at a press briefing in Sydney broadcast on Australian television. The carrier has six A380s, with another 14 on order.
One of the four Rolls-Royce Group Plc engines on a Qantas A380 failed during a Singapore-Sydney flight today, scattering debris over an Indonesian island. The plane, carrying 433 passengers and 26 crew, landed safely.
The airline “might be being cautious but you have to be when it comes to these things,” said Ronald Bishop, a senior lecturer in aviation at Central Queensland University in Australia and a former flight engineer in the U.S. Air Force for more than 20 years. “There is a reason why an engine had a catastrophic failure, and they will need time to work out why.”
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