HONG KONG — Qantas Airways suspended flights on its six Airbus A380 jetliners on Thursday after an engine on one of the superjumbo planes exploded shortly after takeoff from Singapore, scattering pieces of debris over an Indonesian island and forcing the plane to return to Singapore for an emergency landing. There were no reported injuries.
According to a report by the Aviation Safety Network, which keeps a database of aircraft incidents and accidents, Flight 32 suffered an “uncontained” engine failure six minutes after takeoff that caused “substantial” damage to the plane. An uncontained engine failure is extremely rare and occurs when components detach and fly off the main engine housing — often with explosive force.
“When turbines spin, they do so at very high speed, generating tremendous amounts of energy,” said Paul Hayes, director of accidents and insurance at Ascend, an aviation consultancy in London. “The risk in this type of failure is that bits of hot metal go into the passenger cabin or penetrate part of the aircraft structure.”
Alan Joyce, Qantas’s chief executive, said the Australian airline would suspend services on its fleet of six A380s “until we are confident that Qantas safety requirements have been met,” according to a statement on the airline’s Web site.
Emma Kearns, a spokeswoman for Qantas, said its Flight 32, bound for Sydney, returned to Singapore on Thursday after one of the twin-decked jet’s four engines shut down over western Indonesia. She said the flight was carrying 433 passengers and 26 crew members. The plane landed safely in Singapore at around 11:45 a.m. local time, and the Australian government said there were no immediate reports of injuries.