Rolls-Royce makes progress with A380 engine probe

• Source: Xinhua
• [09:09 November 09 2010]
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Rolls-Royce said on Tuesday, it has made progress in understanding the cause of the engine failure that forced a Qantas A380 jet to make an emergency landing after a mid-air engine explosion on Thursday.

It's now clear that the problem is specific to the Trent 900 engine on the Airbus A380 aircraft, Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of A380 engine, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Australia's Qantas Airways has kept its fleet of A380s grounded since the explosion over the Indonesian island of Batam and the aircraft will not fly until at least Friday.

Qantas Chief executive Alan Joyce said "We will not be operating the fleet until we're 100 percent sure that we can ensure the safety of our operations going forward."

Rolls-Royce said it was the first failure of one of its engines on a civil aircraft since 1994.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce said the Qantas engine explosion had no connection with the failure of a Trent 1000 engine on a test bed at its English headquarters in August this year.

The manufacturing giant says it will make a further statement on Friday.