Rolls-Royce “fell short” on A380 engine

Rolls-Royce has admitted it “fell short” of its duties when one of its Airbus A380 engines caught fire and broke apart during a Qantas flight in 2010.

The Trent 900 turbine failed shortly after take-off from Singapore’s Changi Airport in November 2010, showering debris on the Indonesian island of Batam.

And following a report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which concluded that some of the engine’s oil feed pipes “did not conform to the design specifications”, UK-based Rolls-Royce said it regretted the incident and that it had learned lessons from it. The engine-maker also praised the design of the A380 for being able to withstand the engine failure.

“This was a serious and rare event which we very much regret,” said Colin Smith, Rolls-Royce’s director of engineering & technology. “At Rolls-Royce we continually strive to meet the high standards of safety, quality and reliability that our customers and their passengers are entitled to expect. On this occasion we clearly fell short. The robustness of the Airbus A380 and the professionalism of the Qantas crew members assured that the aircraft and all its passengers landed safely.”

The company added that it has “already applied the lessons learned… to prevent this type of event from happening again”.

According to the ATSB report, the incident itself was caused by a leak from an oil pipe in one of the aircraft’s four engines. The pipe had been incorrectly manufactured as a result of a measurement error during the drilling process. The oil leak caused a fire in the engine, which in turn caused the turbine disc to break up and shower debris on the islands below.

Rolls-Royce noted that such disc failures are “extremely uncommon”, with the last reported incident having occurred in 1994. The ATSB said it was satisfied that Rolls-Royce had since taken measures to prevent the incident happening in future, including the installation of a new system designed to shut the engine down before a turbine disc fails.