Qantas Discovers Oil Leaks in Airbus Engines

Qantas airlines will keep its fleet of Airbus A380s on the ground for at least three more days, after discovering oil leaks in three different planes’ engines. The leaks turned up as the Australian airline investigated the mid-air engine explosion that forced one of its A380s to make an emergency landing last week. “The oil leaks were beyond normal tolerances,” Qantas’ CEO told reporters, explaining that they’d found oil “where oil shouldn’t be on the engines.”

Two other airlines have jets using the same Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines that Qantas’ A380s use. They say they haven’t found similar oil leaks, but have grounded their planes just in case. Australian authorities are asking counterparts in Singapore for help finding debris from the plane that made its emergency landing there, in the hopes that it will shed light on the malfunction. (More Qantas stories.)