Rolls-Royce claims progress in race to find cause of superjumbo scare

The manufacturing giant said the incident was specific to its Trent 900 engine and stressed it was the first such failure of one of its large civil engines for 16 years.

Rolls added: "We are working in close co-operation with Airbus, our customers and the authorities, and as always safety remains our highest priority."

Shares in the group pulled back into positive territory, up more than two per cent, having earlier slumped by four per cent after the chief executive of Qantas said oil leaks were discovered in three engines on its superjumbo fleet.

Qantas grounded six A380s after an engine burst minutes into a flight from Singapore to Sydney last week. Rolls-Royce said it had agreed a series of checks and inspections with authorities, Airbus and operators of the Trent 900-powered jets to begin allowing affected planes to resume flights.

But Qantas said earlier all of the airline's A380s would be grounded for at least another 72 hours.

The shares rise provides welcome relief for Rolls-Royce, which has been hammered on the stock market with its market value fall more than 1.5bn.

Singapore Airlines said that its inspections had found no problems with the Trent 900s.

In its statement Rolls Royce pointed out: "The Trent 900 incident is the first of its kind to occur on a large civil Rolls-Royce engine since 1994."

Qantas and Rolls-Royce engineers have carried out eight hours of checks on each engine over the weekend.