Singapore Airlines has announced that, as a purely precautionary measure, it will be replacing the Rolls-Royce engines on three of its fleet of 11 Airbus A380 aircraft. Concerns over the safety of the engines were sparked when a Qantas superjumbo, leaving Singapore for Sydney, experienced an explosion in one of its Trent 900 engines forcing it to return to Changi Airport and make an emergency landing.

Following the incident, Qantas announced it would be grounding its fleet of six A380s until the exact cause of the explosion could be determined. The Australian flag-carrier has since found oil leaks in three of its aircraft’s engines. Singapore Airlines was keen to point out that the traces of oil it has found is different to the problems Qantas is looking into.

The airline said it would be swapping the Rolls-Royce engines for slightly more modern versions of the Trent 900. It is currently not known how long the airline will have to ground its aircraft. Singapore said it hoped its customers would understand and apologised for any disruption to schedules while the changes were made.

The affected planes are in London, Melbourne and Sydney. The refit of the engines is taking place on the advice of Rolls-Royce. Alan Joyce, Qantas’ chief executive confirmed earlier this week that anomalies had been discovered in three of the fleet’s engines.

In a separate incident, a Qantas Boeing 747 returned to Singapore shortly after take off because of engine issues on Friday. Although the aircraft is also fitted with Rolls-Royce manufactured engines, Qantas said the incident was not a cause for safety concerns.