Rolls-Royce admits breach in safety procedures for 2010 incident

Rolls-Royce concluded that its safety procedures were to blame following a report from Australia’s transport safety regulator that pointed to the British manufacturer for the 2010 in-flight explosion of one of its engines on a Qantas A380 aircraft.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau stated in its final report the cause for the explosion was an oil pipe defect which consists of a crack causing oil leaks.

The explosion happened during the flight between Singapore and Sydney, which forced the aircraft to make an emergency landing with its 433 passengers on board. The  circumstances forced temporary grounding of some of Airbus’s flagship A380 super-jumbos.

“The thin wall section significantly reduced the life of the oil feed stub pipe on the number two engine so that a fatigue crack developed, ultimately releasing oil during the flight that resulted in an internal oil fire,” the report said, cited by Financial Times.

The Australian safety watchdog blamed Rolls-Royce for neglecting its safety procedures as stating that the crack of oil pipes could be traced if procedures were followed strictly by firms employees.

Citing the report it said that “Those opportunities were missed for a number of reasons, but generally because of ambiguities within the manufacturer’s procedures and the non-adherence by a number of the manufacturing staff to those procedures”.

Rolls-Royces director of engineering and technology defined the explosion as “serious and rare event that we very much regret” according to Financial Times. The firm statement complies with the opinion of the Australian Transport Bureau. The aircraft engine manufacturer explained they already applied a new technology – a software which shuts down the engine in case of occurring similar issues.

The airline which airplane experienced the engine failure – Qantas also came up with a official statement. “This was an unprecedented event and, as the report confirms, all possible steps have been taken to ensure that it can never happen again,” the airline assured.

Rolls-Royce shares climbed by 0.14% and year to date share price rose by 22.05%.