Rolls-Royce finds faulty part on superjumbo engines

Rolls-Royce yesterday said it had identified the faulty part behind an engine failure that forced a Qantas A380 superjumbo into an emergency landing and was making efforts to fix the problem.

But the Derby-based manufacturing giant, which is rolling out a programme of inspections across all A380s, admitted the cost of the response would lead to "slightly lower" profit growth, compared with previous forecasts of 4-5 per cent.

Rolls said the failure was confined to a specific component in the turbine of the Trent 900 engine, which sparked an oil fire and led to the release of another part - a turbine disc. Passengers on board Qantas flight QF32 described seeing the engine burst into flames minutes into a journey from Singapore to Sydney last week, scattering debris over Indonesia's Batam island.

The European Aviation Safety Authority yesterday issued an emergency directive demanding regular checks on all Trent 900 engines made by Rolls-Royce.

This forced Qantas, which discovered small oil leaks in engines on three aircraft, to prolong the grounding of its A380 fleet.

Singapore Airlines grounded three of its 11 A380s and German airline Lufthansa said it would also perform inspections of engines on its superjumbos.