A Qantas Airbus A380-800, registration VH-OQG performing flight QF-94 (dep May 19th) from Los Angeles,CA (USA) to Melbourne,VI (Australia) with 480 people on board, was just step climbing from FL320 to FL340 about 800nm westsouthwest of Los Angeles when the outboard right hand engine (Trent 972) emitted a bang and streaks of flames and sparks prompting the flight crew to shut the engine down.

The aircraft descended to FL290 and returned to Los Angeles for a safe landing about 4:15 hours after departure.

The airline reported the aircraft returned to Los Angeles due to operational reasons, subsequently added that one of the four engines lost power and was shut down.

On May 22nd 2017 the Australian Transportation Safety Board (ATSB) reported the engine #4 thrust reduced to about 45% while climbing through FL330. The flight crew shut the engine down and returned to Los Angeles.

The ATSB rated the occurrence an incident and opened an investigation.