Insider Media Limited

Rolls-Royce has said the oil leaks found in the engines of the Qantas Airbus A380 Trent 900 last week have nothing to do with a separate Trent 1000 engine incident which occurred in August 2010 on a test bed in Derby.

Yesterday, Rolls-Royce’s share price rebounded by 3 per cent following turbulent trading at the end of last week. The company said it was "making progress" in identifying the faults on the Qantas engine.

In a statement last night, Rolls-Royce said: “Rolls-Royce has made progress in understanding the cause of the engine failure on the Trent 900 powered A380 Qantas flight QF32 on 4 November 2010. It is now clear this incident is specific to the Trent 900 engine.

“As a result, a series of checks and inspections has been agreed with Airbus, with operators of the Trent 900 powered A380 and with the airworthiness authorities. These are being progressively completed which is allowing a resumption of operation of aircraft in full compliance with all safety standards. We are working in close cooperation with Airbus, our customers and the authorities, and as always safety remains our highest priority.

“We can be certain that the separate Trent 1000 event which occurred in August 2010 on a test bed in Derby is unconnected. This incident happened during a development programme with an engine operating outside normal parameters. We understand the cause and a solution has been implemented."

The Trent 900 incident is the first of its kind to occur on a large civil Rolls-Royce engine since 1994. Since then Rolls-Royce has accumulated 142 million hours of flight on Trent and RB211 engines.

Earlier yesterday, Qantas said it was keeping its Airbus A380 superjumbos grounded for at least three more days yesterday after finding oil leaks in some engines, reviving safety fears after two mid-air blow-outs last week.

Chief executive Alan Joyce said rigorous testing had uncovered the anomalies on the Rolls-Royce engines on three separate aircraft, pushing back the return to action of the long-haul planes by 72 hours.

On Thursday, a Qantas Airbus A380 was forced into an emergency landing. The plane had to return to Singapore after one of its four engines exploded just minutes into its flight.

There was worse to come on Friday, when a Qantas Boeing 747 - which was carrying the A380's captain - also had to turn back to Singapore after another model of Rolls-Royce engine also failed in mid-air.

The flight was carrying a combined total of 897 passengers and crew.