After Emergency Landing, Qantas Grounds A380s

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Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

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Just after takeoff, there was an engine exploded on a Qantas flight leaving Singapore. The crew was able to make a safe emergency landing, with one of the 433 passengers reporting it was among the smoothest landings he had ever experienced, emergency or otherwise, according to The Australian.

The New York Times reports that Qantas has suspended service on its Airbus A380 jetliners (a fleet of six planes) until it can verify that the planes meet all airline safety requirements. Other airlines flying A380s, including Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa, are keeping tabs on the situation while continuing to operate the planes.

This, if you recall, is the latest in a string of non-fatal mechanical incidents on Qantas planes. In August, “catastrophic failure” forced a plane to return to its departure city of San Francisco, and last March, two mechanical incidents (one involving an engine, another related to the plane’s brakes) made the news.

As more information about the A380s comes to light, we’ll cover it here.

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