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Rolls-Royce 'To Replace Entire A380 Engines'
5:57pm Monday November 15, 2010
Sarah Gordon
Rolls-Royce will temporarily replace entire engines suffering from oil leaks on the stricken Airbus A380s, an aviation regulator has claimed.
Qantas has grounded all its A380 aircraft since the engine fire
The official said the firm will completely remove the faulty engines and replace them with new ones while it fixes the leaking part. The engine-maker will then swap the old engine back in again. The anonymous source claims to have been briefed about the operation by Rolls-Royce and several of the airlines involved. However, Rolls-Royce has declined to comment on the alleged plans. One of Qantas' A380 planes - the biggest in the world - was forced to make an emergency landing on November 4, after leaking oil in one of the four Trent 900 engines caught fire.
We are taking our normal and extremely conservative approach to safety and will not operate our A380 fleet until we are completely confident that it is safe to do so.
<cite> Simon Rushton, Qantas spokesman
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The blaze partly disintegrated the engine on the Sydney-bound plane and experts say fling debris then caused further damage to the wing, causing the pilots to lose control of the second engine. The plane managed to return to Singapore and land safely, but fears have been raised about how close the fully-loaded aircraft came to disaster. Qantas immediately grounded its six A380s and reported suspicious oil leaks in three engines on three separate planes.
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The aircraft, which normally operate on Qantas' most profitable routes between Australia and Los Angeles and London and Singapore, remain grounded despite financial pressure to put them back into operation. Replacing all the engines would delay their return to the skies still further. But Qantas spokesman Simon Rushton reassured passengers: "We are taking our normal and extremely conservative approach to safety and will not operate our A380 fleet until we are completely confident that it is safe to do so."
Airbus has confirmed Rolls-Royce will equip the engines with software which will enable them to shut down before an oil leak can cause disintegration. Singapore Airlines, which grounded three of its 11 A380s after checks found oil leaks in three Trent 900s, said two are back in service after engine changes and that work was continuing on the third. The release of the Airbus A380 aircraft was originally delayed by three years, but is now used by several major airlines and both Virgin and British Airways have placed orders.
