Beleaguered Qantas A380 heads home after 16 months on the ground
After some 16 months on the ground at Changi, the Qantas A380 plane which was forced to make an emergency return to Singapore following an engine blowout in November 2010 will finally be heading home this month.
No less than CEO Alan Joyce and an entourage of senior Qantas officials, together with a large group of the Australian media, will be in town on April 20 and 21 to take delivery of the now-repaired plane.
The plane will take off on April 21 - following a media briefing on April 20 - and will be re-introduced into service immediately after that.
On Nov 4, 2010, Qantas flight QF32 out of Singapore experienced an engine failure en route to Sydney, with the explosion punching a hole in the wing of the aircraft and showering debris over Batam island. No-one was injured, but an emergency landing in a trail of smoke dented Qantas's reputation for safety and prompted the carrier to ground all its Airbus A380s.
In an interim report in January this year, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said a 'sequence of events' led to the engine failure.
It started with an oil fire caused by a manufacturing defect in an oil feed pipe.
'That defect resulted in fatigue cracking in the pipe, so that oil sprayed into an engine cavity where it ignited because of the high air temperature,' the safety watchdog said.
The plane's manufacturer Airbus, engine-maker Rolls-Royce which supplied the Trent 900 engine and homegrown SIA Engineering Company were all involved in the multi-million dollar repair of the stricken plane.
Copyright 2012 Singapore Press Holdings LimitedAll Rights Reserved
