Singapore/ Sydney: Engine trouble forced a Qantas Airways Ltd jet to make an emergency landing in Singapore on Friday, less than 48 hours after another of the Australian carrier's aircraft had to land prematurely because its engine blew up.
The Sydney-bound Boeing 747-400 aircraft, with 412 people on board, returned to the airport 20 minutes after takeoff due to "an issue with one of its engines," Qantas Airways Ltd said in a statement.
That came a day after a Qantas Airbus A380 jet was forced to make an emergency landing after one of its four Rolls-Royce Plc engines appeared to break apart in flight, scattering debris over an Indonesian island.
"Around 20 minutes into the flight we heard a loud bang," Ranjan Sivagnanasundaram, an Australian citizen in his early 50s who was on Friday's flight, told Reuters. "It was a very big shock to us, especially after what happened yesterday."
The Boeing Co aircraft also had been equipped with Rolls-Royce engines.
Officials at British engine-maker Rolls-Royce did not return calls seeking comment.
The earlier incident saw Qantas ground its fleet of six A380s pending safety checks that will take 24 to 48 hours and led other airlines to check their own A380s.
"We believe this is probably, most likely, a material failure or some sort of design issue," Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce told a news conference in Sydney. "If we don't find any adverse findings in those checks, the aircraft will resume operations."
Separately, a European Union air safety body confirmed it told airlines in August to make checks after finding "wear, beyond engine manual limits," on the type of Rolls-Royce engines fitted to the Qantas jet and some other A380s.
The incidents could provide Rolls' rivals General Electric Co and the Pratt & Whitney unit of United Technologies Corp with a chance to grab market share from the No. 2 engine-maker.
"Things move slowly in the engine business, but there is no question that you have a series of events that really put Rolls-Royce's reputation at risk," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president at aviation consultancy Teal Group.
GE is the world's largest maker of jet engines, Pratt comes in third.
Airlines Inspect A380S
The A380 engine failure on Thursday was the biggest incident to date for the world's largest passenger plane, which went into service in 2007.
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