The emergency landing of a Qantas Airbus A380 in Singapore, which resulted in the grounding of the entire fleet, may have been caused by a design fault according to the airline.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce confirmed that an investigation into the cause of the engine failure was continuing and added “we believe this is likely to have been caused by some kind of material failure or a design issue.”

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As a result of the incident, Qantas has grounded its entire fleet of six A380 aircraft pending emergency checks, and relief aircraft have been provided for passengers stranded as a result of the action.

Rolls-Royce, the maker of the Trent 900 engines used on the aircraft, has requested airliners which use the engines including Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa to conduct precautionary checks.

It has also been confirmed that in at least two previous cases during the past year, A380 airplanes using Trent 900 engines were forced into emergency landings following engine failure.

Qantas also moved to refute claims made by the federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association that engineers had been stood down as a result of the incident.

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