Further concerns were raised over the safety of the Rolls-Royce Trend 900 after Singapore Airlines (SIA) confirmed an aircraft was forced to return to base after an engine failure.

A Tuesday flight from Singapore to Hong Kong, with 368 passengers on board, was forced to return to the city-state following the failure.

The engine, made by Rolls-Royce, was shut down shortly after takeoff as the plane was climbing to reach cruising altitude on, SIA, the second largest carrier in the world by market capitalisation, said in a statement.

“An engine change was carried out on the aircraft and we are looking into the incident with Rolls-Royce and Airbus,” added SIA spokesman Nicholas Ionides.

Rolls-Royce came under the spotlight late last year when an engine on an Airbus A380 aircraft operated by Qantas exploded after takeoff and forced the passenger jet to return to Singapore.

Rolls-Royce and Qantas have since reached an out-of-court commercial settlement.