The once-glittering future of the Airbus A380 superjumbo is looking shaky after a third significant engine failure forced an Air France flight to make an emergency landing last weekend.
A similar incident occurred in 2010 on a Qantas A380 flight from Singapore to Sydney, and a less serious engine malfunction caused another Qantas A380 Los Angeles-Melbourne flight to turn back in May of this year.
To make matters worse, Airbus suffered a massive blow in December with the announcement that it was forced to postpone deliveries of 12 A380s to its biggest customer, Emirates, over the next two years due to an issue with its Rolls Royce engines.
Just days later, the company announced that an order of 100 planes to Iran Air did not include a single A380, with the airline opting instead for smaller models.
When the superjumbo was first unveiled in 2005, it was hailed as the beginning of a new era in long-haul air travel: not only the largest, but the greenest and quietest aircraft in the world.
But orders, having fluctuated over time, have since been on a sharp decline, and bigger, it would appear, is not always better when it comes to ferrying an ever-increasing number of passengers through the skies.
So could this latest Airbus A380 mishap be the final nail in the coffin?
What happened to the Air France flight?
Last Saturday during an Air France flight from Paris to Los Angeles, passengers reported hearing a loud bang followed by vibrations that shook the cabin for 20 minutes.
One passenger, Daniel McNeely, said those in window seats claimed the entire engine exploded “in a giant fireball.”
By the time the A380 landed at a Canadian military airfield in Goose Bay, Newfoundland, the cowling covering one of the plane’s four engines had been completely torn off.
American manufacturer Engine Alliance, which supplied the engine on this particular Air France jet, said it was working with investigative authorities to assess the cause of the failure. French investigation authority BEA today confirmed that the engine’s main fan and inlet had become detached.
None of the 520 people aboard the double-decker airliner were injured.
Previous incidents
Air France’s forced landing revived memories of engine damage to a Qantas A380 - this time running a Rolls-Royce engine - shortly after takeoff from Singapore in 2010.
In similar circumstances, the Sydney-bound flight - carrying 459 people - was abandoned 15 minutes into its journey after passengers heard a loud bang and saw smoke and sparks coming out of one engine.
Once on the tarmac, it appeared that casing from the aircraft's number two engine was missing and parts of the aircraft's underside were blackened. An investigation blamed a leak from an engine pipe.
There was also an incident in May of this year when a Qantas A380 from Los Angeles to Melbourne was forced to turn back two hours into the flight. Qantas gave the reason as being due to “abnormal engine indications”. Again, it landed safely and the aircraft was back in service some days later.
Nervous fliers, however, can drop their shoulders. The A380 hasn’t suffered a single fatal accident since it entered service 12 years ago, and all incidents involving engine malfunctions have resulted in perfectly safe landings.
