Singapore Air grounded A380s

[Sam Chui]

News just came in

on

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-...110-17mwq.html

The fallout from Qantas's A380 mid-air emergency has escalated after Singapore Airlines today took three of its superjumbos out of service to replace their Rolls Royce engines.

Singapore Airlines grounded the aircraft for "precautionary engine changes" over concerns raised during inspections, an airline spokeswoman said today.

One aircraft in Melbourne, one in Sydney and another in London have been forbidden to fly until the engines are replaced.

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A Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 at Changi Airport. Photo: Reuters

Passengers on the Australian flights are being shunted to other services while the work is done.

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"Based on further analysis of inspection findings as the investigation into last week's [Qantas] incident progresses, we are going to be carrying out precautionary engine changes on three of our A380s," the spokeswoman said.

"That explains the aircraft change out of Melbourne this morning, and that's also going to impact our A380 fight out of Sydney at 4.30pm. We apologise for any disruption this causes."

The spokeswoman said the delay to Melbourne passengers would be "about two hours" and travellers would be put on the airline's later services.

The airline said that Rolls-Royce had recommended further detailed inspections of three engines – one on each aircraft – as a "result of oil staining".

"This is to ensure that the cause of the oil staining can be determined," a spokesman said.

Qantas has grounded its fleet of six Airbus A380 aircraft until at least late tomorrow, after the investigation into last Thursday's near-disaster was narrowed to oil leaks in the turbines.

Just two days ago, Singapore Airlines had said that it had carried out checks on all of the engines used on its A380s late last week and had "absolutely no findings of concern".

Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa had been operating their A380s, which use the same Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines as Qantas, after the incident involving QF32 last Thursday.

Qantas has said that engines on its A380s operated on a "slightly higher" power rating than the other two airlines' Trent 900s, and whether this was relevant to last week's incident was being investigated.

[Benny Zheng]

SQ222 9V-SKJ has departed Sydney early at 1503LT. It also performed an early slightly derated rotation, probably means no pax on board?

[Montague S]

just tech and cabin crew, the one in MEL left around noon and there is one flying back from London empty.

[Maikha Ly]

Originally Posted by Benny Zheng

SQ222 9V-SKJ has departed Sydney early at 1503LT. It also performed an early slightly derated rotation, probably means no pax on board?

I figured that was you that was out at the beach this afternoon!

I too was there and chanced a shot of this A380, only hours after I heard about the groundings. I'll direct link my shot from my Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...8&id=708691954


Was impressed at least to see how soon it was rotating though!

[Mark Grima]

Hey guys,

Any info on the other two regos?

Cheers

M

[Mike S]

I always wonder what the pilots get up to with no Pax onboard...

Maybe just a little inverted action every once in a while? High G turns? Loop the loops??

Just joking :P

[Sarah C]

Originally Posted by Mark Grima

Hey guys,

Any info on the other two regos?

SKA and SKC are the other two.

[Andrew M]

So the 1st and 3rd A380 and then a much later A380 delivered to SQ.

Very sad time for the industry at the moment with the A380 issues and now the B787 issue.

Yes could be much worse but still

[Steve Bottom]

9V-SKH is at this time airborne over the English Channel heading over between Rotterdam and Amsterdam as flight SIA-321. watching on ADSB from here in Cairns. ( no joke) FL-350 510Knots looks like its heading home.

[Trevor Sinclair]

I was unsure as to whether to start a new thread on this, however, Lufthansa has replaced a Rolls-Royce engine on one of its Airbus A380 superjumbos after maintenance checks detected a problem.

Lufthansa did not specify the problem, but said it was minor and not connected with the oil leaks that have grounded Qantas and Singapore Airlines. The says the aircraft in question is back in service and Lufthansa's scheduled A380 flights have not been affected by the engine change.