United Technologies/Pratt goes after Rolls-Royce

The U.S. federal court case is United Technologies v. Rolls-Royce, U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut, No. 10-01523, and yes, part of the case is the engine of the Airbus 380 (the Trent 900).

From the Guardian:

Rolls-Royce was today warned it could face a BP-style backlash in the US after an engine design flaw was cited as a potential cause of the explosion that forced the emergency landing of a Qantas-owned A380 in Singapore on Thursday [4 Nov 10].

The warning came as a second Qantas jet – a Boeing 747-400 also powered by Rolls-Royce technology – returned to Singapore's Changi airport after reporting an engine problem shortly after take-off today .

Qantas said the second incident was not serious – but it was enough to trigger a further sell-off in Rolls-Royce shares, which closed down 5% for the second day running, a 48-hour period that has wiped £1.2bn off the group's value.

UPDATE on 8 Nov 2010:

see Qantas CEO: Oil Leaks in 3 Engines of Its A380s :

On Monday [8 Nov 2010], CEO Alan Joyce said engineers have discovered oil leaks in the turbine area of three engines on three different A380s.

"The oil leaks were beyond normal tolerances," Joyce told reporters. "So Rolls-Royce and our engineers have looked at what we have gathered as an accepted level and they have passed that threshold."

"All of these engines are new engines on a new aircraft type," he added. "The engines are not performing to the parameters that you would expect with this."