A global effort has been required to return a Qantas Airways Airbus A380 to service after it suffered a mid-air engine explosion over Indonesia in late 2010.

The super jumbo, named Nancy Bird-Walton after the Australian pioneer aviatrix, will return to the skies sporting four new engines, as well as a reinforced and repaired left wing that performs as well as one fresh out of the Airbus factory in Toulouse.

In what has been the biggest aviation repair job in living memory, Airbus, Qantas and Singapore Airlines Engineering technicians from around the world have worked on the aircraft for 11 months, utilizing about 40,000 tonnes of tooling and parts.

Some 170 Airbus technicians from eight different nations have been part of the repair team, along with specialists from Qantas and Singapore Airlines Engineering.

And the parts themselves have come from parts of Asia, as well as France and Europe.

“The aircraft is now back as good as new,” Airbus director of customer support and services Derek Blackham said during a media briefing in Singapore on Friday.

“That’s the way we planned it.”

It has also undergone rigorous testing – both on the ground and during two test flights – prior to being given the all-clear to start carrying passengers again.

On November 4, 2010, the double-decker Qantas A380 was flying over Indonesia when an engine caught fire and exploded due to what investigators later said was a faulty oil pipe.

The “uncontained engine failure” on one of the four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines sent debris flying in all directions, piercing the wing, puncturing fuel tanks and damaging some wiring and hydraulics.

Also, parts of the engine landed on the Indonesian island of Batam.

The pilots managed to land the plane safely back at Singapore’s Changi Airport without injury to any of the 433 passengers and 26 crew.

As part of the repairs, estimated to cost $A139 million and covered by insurance, more than six kilometres of wiring in the aircraft’s left wing was replaced.

Qantas manager of maintenance operations Tim Gent said the total cost of the repairs, as well as the cost of having the aircraft on the ground “didn’t come close” to its write-off value.

The aircraft was scheduled to re-enter service on April 28, 2012 and bring Qantas’s A380 fleet to 12.

The national flag carrier was due to receive two more A380s in 2013, with a further six to come from 2019 onwards.

The head of Qantas’s integrated operations centre, Alan Milne, said representatives from engine manufacturer Rolls Royce were offered the opportunity to participate in the media briefing but they declined.

“They are a great business partner of ours,” Mr Milne said.

“We do support them and have all the confidence in the world in Rolls-Royce and their engines.”

*The reporter travelled to Singapore courtesy of Qantas Airways.