Indonesian debris sought in Qantas blast probe

Australian investigators probing a Qantas A380 engine explosion over Indonesia urged residents of Batam island Sunday to hand over what could be "crucial" debris from the blast.

Qantas grounded its entire A380 fleet after one of the superjumbos was forced to make a dramatic return to Singapore Thursday with smoke trailing from one of its engines and damage to its wing.

The blast sent debris raining down over Batam, and Australian investigators urged any Indonesian who had discovered pieces of the engine to hand them over to local police, particularly a turbine disk fragment it said could be vital.

"The recovery of that disk could be crucial to a full understanding of the nature of the engine failure, and may have implications for the prevention of future similar occurrences," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said.

A range of debris had already been collected by the Indonesian authorities and arrived in Singapore on Saturday, including a partial engine component which would be forwarded to Britain for examination by Rolls Royce, the engine's manufacturer.

Experts were mapping the damage to the A380 at Singapore's Changi airport and preparing the failed engine for removal from the aircraft, the ATSB added.

"Once removed from the aircraft, the engine will be transported to an appropriate engineering facility for disassembly and technical examination," it said.

The team at Changi included experts from Airbus, Rolls Royce and Qantas as well as investigators from Australia, Britain, Indonesia, Singapore and France.

Less than 24 hours after the Airbus blast Qantas was rocked by a second engine failure which forced a Sydney-bound Boeing 747-400 jumbo to return to Singapore.

Celebrating its 90th birthday this month, the flagship carrier said testing continued on its fleet of six A380 superjumbos, some of which are currently in Los Angeles. 

"Qantas continues to work with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Airbus and Rolls-Royce, the engine manufacturer, to investigate the incidents and to carry out maintenance checks on our A380 fleet," it said.

Qantas, known as the 'Flying Kangaroo', has never had a fatal jetliner crash.

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