Is the world's largest passenger jet a death trap?

An Airbus A380 superjumbo jet suffered a massive engine failure over Indonesia this week, raising new concerns about the plane's safety

A Qantas A380 makes a safe emergency landing in Singapore after suffering engine failure just after take off.
(Image credit: Corbis)

Australian airline Qantas has grounded its fleet of six A380 Airbuses after one of them was forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore because one of its four engines "disintegrated" in flight. A blast in the No. 2 engine apparently sent debris up through the wing, a potentially very dangerous occurance. It was the third incident involving an A380 superjumbo jet in as many months, and some of the 440 Qantas passengers said they felt "lucky to be alive." Should fliers by alarmed? (Watch a passenger's footage from the crash)

This is certainly frightening: Qantas "claims there was no explosion," says Dan Nosowitz at Popular Science, but that "doesn't exactly jibe with passenger accounts of 'a big boom.'" And after all the "struggles" and delays Airbus had to overcome to get these massive, double-decker 525-seaters to market, passengers are going to be nervous until they get some straight answers.

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