French experts say fault at rear of engine | WPN World People News

An Airbus A380 airliner that was forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore on Thursday had suffered a "serious" fault at the rear of one of its jet engines, French crash investigators said.

France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, said it would be involved in the probe into what went wrong on board the French-built plane, and that it appeared that a section of engine cover had dropped off.

Qantas flight QF32, which originated in London, was heading for Sydney from Singapore on Thursday, with 459 people on board, but turned back after one of its four engines suffered an explosive "shut down" over the Indonesian island of Batam, raining debris on the ground.

The explosion rained debris on a downtown area of Batam but no one on the plane or on the ground was injured.

"What we know for the moment is that the engine lost its rear housing. It's a fault on the rear part of the jet motor that led to a serious damage," said a BEA spokeswoman in Paris.

"It's a serious incident. It's obvious that normally the housing should not fall off mid-flight," said Jean-Paul Troadec, director of the BEA.

"It's very likely the pilot stopped the engine when he spotted an anomaly. But we must be cautious, we don't yet know the cause of the anomaly."

Troadec said that the loss of one engine on the four-engined jet should have been "manageable" under normal emergency procedures.

The BEA said Australian authorities would lead the investigation and that a two or three-strong French team of experts would join their colleagues to represent France as the plane's homeland.

Meanwhile, Air France joined Germany's Lufthansa and the United Arab Emirates' Emirates airline in saying it had no immediate plans to ground its own fleet of A380 jets following the incident.

The French carrier said its A380s were equipped with jet engines built by Engine Alliance, a consortium of Pratt and Wittney, General Electric and Safran, whereas Qantas was flying with Rolls Royce motors.

Qantas has already grounded all six of is Airbus superjumbos following the incident, but the other airlines that operate A380s - Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Air France and Lufthansa - say they will continue flying them at this stage.

Source:Europe News.Net