Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Rainer Bexten
What: Qantas Boeing 747-400 en route from Bangkok (Thailand) to London Heathrow,EN
Where: Bangkok
When: May 20th 2011
Who: 308 passengers
Why: After takeoff from Bangkok, the engine vibration and temperature increased beyond the norm in one engine and the engine is reported to have salled. That (Rolls Royce) engine was shut down, and the pilots returned to Bangkik to make a safe landing with the remaining three engines. It has not yet been announced if the problem is due to the internal pipe irregularities which were indicated in an airworthiness directive just released, but with problems that go back several years.
By the look of cursory evidence, it appears this could be the same manufacturing defect in an oil pipe, which led to an internal oil leak in the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine that failed in a Qantas A380 in 2010 causing a midair explosion, but investigators will have to reveal the details.
Pegasus Airlines flight PC-947 made an emergency landing in Zurich, Switzerland, on September 7th.
Thomson Airways flight BY-1714 had to divert and make an emergency landing in Sofia, Bulgaria, on October 8th.
Jetstar flight JQ-711 had to return and make an emergency landing in Melbourne, Australia, on May 11th.
