Qantas Airways has suspended flights of its Airbus A380s after one of the aircraft was forced to land in Singapore with engine trouble.
It is one of the most serious incidents for the world's largest passenger plane in its three years of commercial flight.
The Airbus A380 was carrying 459 people when it suffered trouble with one of its four engines shortly after it had left the island state en route for Sydney. It had originated in London.
Australian officials said no one on board was injured.
Qantas said the plane had been forced to shut down the engine and dump fuel. There are reports that part of the engine casing was blown off.
Qantas, which operates six A380s, said it was grounding the aircraft pending a full investigation.
'We will suspend all A380 takeoffs until we are fully confident we have sufficient information about (flight) QF32,' Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce told reporters in Sydney.
'The A380 is a fantastic aircraft. This issue of an engine failure is one we have not seen before. We are obviously taking this very seriously, because it was a significant engine failure.'
There have been no fatal incidents involving A380s since they were launched in 2005 amid great fanfare as the greenest, quietest and biggest jetliner.
Singapore Airlines said it was not grounding its A380 fleet but that it was closely assessing the situation.
Earlier this year, one of the planes operated by Qantas burst two tyres when landing in Sydney, and in September 2009 an A380 was forced to turn around in mid-flight and return to Paris.
Initial media reports said the plane had crashed after an explosion over the Indonesian island of Batam, near Singapore.
