Update Shares of Qantas Airways slumped in heavy trading today as rumours swirled that one of its new Airbus A380 super-jumbo airliners had crashed in Indonesia.Investors sent shares tumbling by more than 5 per cent, or 17 cents, to $2.82 on reports that flight QF32 had crashed on the Indonesian island of Batam, near Singapore.
The share price recovered most of its losses, though, as it became clear that the aircraft had landed safely back at Singapore's Changi Airport. It ended the day at $2.89, up 2 cents for the day.
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Share turnover topped 67 million, the busiest single day's trade since February 18, and more than four times the average full-day volume over the past year.
Qantas later put out a statement saying QF32 had ''experienced an engine issue soon after take off and returned to Singapore.''
''Some media reports suggested the aircraft had crashed,'' Qantas said in its statement. ''These reports are incorrect. No Qantas aircraft has crashed.''
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline would suspend all A380 aircraft as a precaution until Qantas was ''comfortable'' and ''we understand the reasons'' for the incident.
But Mr Joyce stressed today's incident was the first ''issue'' that had occurred ''with this engine failure''.
''We take our safety standards very seriously,'' he said.
Mr Joyce said that engine failures occurred on aircraft around the world everyday, but Qantas needed to ensure the safe operation of its planes.
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