Qantas finds engine 'anomalies' in its A380 fleet

The chief executive of Qantas said last night the airline has found engine problems in more of its Airbus A380s following an incident last week in which one of its superjumbos made an emergency landing after an engine exploded in mid-flight. Three more engines across the fleet were being inspected, Alan Joyce told Australia's ABC news . "On three of the engines what we found is slight anomalies – oil where oil shouldn't be on the engines. We're just trying to check what the cause of that would be," he said. The announcement is a fresh blow to Rolls-Royce, which supplies the engines for Qantas's A380 jets. No one was injured when the plane made an emergency landing in Singapore but Qantas grounded its fleet of A380s. A day after the incident Joyce said a "design fault" in the giant Trent 900 engines might have caused the blowout, a view he reiterated last night. "These are new engines on new aircraft and they shouldn't have these issues at this stage," Joyce said. The Qantas head said he hoped the airline would get the double-decker planes flying again soon: "We still believe with the progress we are making – this is days not weeks – but we will take as long as it needs to in order that we are absolutely comfortable the aircraft is safe to fly." Flight QF32 from London to Sydney had just taken off from Singapore when a large section of the rear of the engine, seemingly including part of a turbine, was blown off, damaging the plane's wing and dropping debris on to the Indonesian island of Batam below. Singapore Airlines briefly grounded its fleet of A380s, which also use the Rolls-Royce engines.