Qantas flight QF1, a Boeing 747-400 en route to London and carrying more than 300 passengers, returned to Bangkok today after one of its Rolls-Royce RB211 engines failed.
Pilots shut down one of four engines on the aircraft because of “an increase in vibration and high temperatures”, a Qantas spokesman said.
“The aircraft can safely fly on three engines and it had a normal landing in Bangkok not long afterwards.”
“We believe the cause is similar to events that other airlines are experiencing and is subject to an increased monitoring programme from the manufacturer Rolls Royce,” the spokesman added.
Ben Sandilands, in his Plane Talking column, wrote that this was no ordinary engine failure.
“It is much more serious. Since Qantas closed its specialist RB211 maintenance and overhaul shop at Sydney it has experienced an increased incidence of failures from the engines which are now handled in a Rolls-Royce facility in Hong Kong.â€
Sandilands wrote that sources in Qantas say the issue “is not the quality of work at the Hong Kong facility, which carries out all the actions Rolls-Royce deems necessary for the aging engine design, but that it doesn’t do the special things the Sydney facility did to them to keep them working reliably to the unique needs of Qantas RB211 operationsâ€.
