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AN ENGINE PROBLEM forced an Emirates A380 superjumbo to turn back to Sydney, the airline said today, with passengers hearing a loud bang and seeing a flash of orange.
The pilot of the Dubai-bound Airbus plane carrying 380 passengers made the decision to turn back shortly after take-off last night.
“Emirates flight EK413 from Sydney to Dubai on 11 November turned back shortly after take-off due to an engine fault,” the carrier said in a statement.
“Emirates apologises for any inconvenience caused to its customers. However, the safety of our passengers and crew is of the highest priority and will not be compromised.”
Fairfax journalist Matt Campbell was on the plane and told the Sydney Morning Herald the aircraft was still climbing.
“It seemed about half an hour into the flight when I saw a bright orange flash, heard a loud bang and there was a big thump through the cabin,” he said.
“The flight attendants were rushing about through the cabin and then eventually the PA came on and the captain said there was an engine problem with engine number three and that engine had now been shut down.”
An Emirates spokesman told AFP the carrier was still working on what caused the scare but admitted passengers may have “seen a flash and heard noise”.
“There were no flames or smoke,” he added, despite some passengers telling local media they saw fire.
“The pilot made a decision to turn back as a precaution.”
Another passenger told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph the Emirates flight attendants “panicked more than the passengers”.
“Everyone was running left and right (with) no one knowing what’s happened.” Amal Aburawi, a doctor, told the tabloid, and said non-English speaking passengers were not properly informed about what was happening.
She said usually Arabic announcements followed the English but “this time no one mentioned anything in Arabic and there (were) many Arabic passengers, many of them old ladies.”
Qantas, which recently sealed a major partnership with Emirates, had an engine explode on one of its A380s over Indonesia in November 2010.
The accident, during a flight from Singapore to Sydney, led the Australian carrier to temporarily ground its entire A380 superjumbo fleet.
Subsequent investigations pinpointed a manufacturing defect which caused fatigue cracking in an oil pipe, resulting in a fire and potentially catastrophic engine failure.
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I think these A380′s were put up in the sky under pressure due to massive time and cost over runs. Reminds me of Ireland’s building boom where apartment blocks were thrown up without proper standards. One of them will drop out of the sky before Airbus and the authorities who certified them will be exposed for cutting corners.
Eh hopefully not?
Oh yeah I agree, I do hope one doesn’t drop through the clouds. But delivery of these things was delayed at least twice due to technical problems getting the different sections of the plane made in different locations to fit together and talk to each other. This lead to cancelled orders and a big drop in the share price. Airbus had put so much money into this monster that it had to fly or else Airbus would go bust. So with that kind of pressure, well ……. how could you not suspect that corners were cut ?
As long as it doesn’t work out like the DC 10 in the 70′s – where McDonnell Douglas were in a race with Lockheed and their Tristar to make sales in the wide-body airliner market – too many short cuts taken and the DC 10 was launched with several engineering flaws that caused loss of life in…too early to tell I suppose if it was a engineering or design flaw rather something like that or bird strike…but a race between 2 big airline companies has led to shortcuts before…
I’m supplied Airbus hasn’t looked at an alternative for the Rolls Royce engines. They’ve been having problems since the beginning…..
Surprised…….. Surprised…….. Damn smart phones auto text piece of capacity mofo……… Capacity….. I MEANT CRAP…. PIECE OF CRAP……
Oh…. It’s Monday… Sorry
What??
Errr – Rolls Royce are NOT sole engine suppliers for the A380. Tbe Engine Alliance GP7000 is an alternative – which is in fact fitted to Emirates A380s.
I was nervous enough… Now I’m brickin it.
Why? Nothing actually happened here.
Just a seriously nervous flyer. Every bump & bang leaves my bottom twitching like a rabbits nose.
When your times up.. It’s up
Yeah but whats the story when the pilots time is up ;)
Exactly! Slow news day
prob too high for birdstrike,I’d go with lightening strike,the engine inlet cowl is a common area
Must have been a frightening experience for all the passengers, whatever the cause was…
Bird strike, I think.
have your say