Yesterday, one of Airbus Corp shinning stars suffered a mishap. The brand new airbus 380 had a engine failure. The Airbus 380 has only been in service for less then two years so it's considered new. The A-380 is the world's largest commercial passenger aircraft. Depending on the confirguration you can carry from 400 to 600 passengers. The A380 that had a engine failure was operated by Qantas Airlines. Qantas Airlines has a excellent safety record & is one of only a few airlines that can brag about never having a fatal aircraft accident. The Qantas flight had just taken off from Singapore when it had it's number 2 engine explode. The flight dumped fuel before landing in Indonesia. The aircraft has four engines & is capable of maintaining level flight with just 2 engines. Even with no engine power an airplane could still glide for quite a long ways. There are two types of engine failures one is a flame out which happens when something interrupts normal fuel flow such as icing. The other is a seizure which is more serious. A seizure is cause by something mechanical breaking & causing further damage to the engine. Seizures often cause other damage to the airplane like maybe a compressor blade damaging the fuselage. When you have a flame out the passengers may not even notice.With a flame out you have a greater chance of being able to restart the engine in flight.  However, when you have an engine seizure the passenger will know. It would be obvious. For starters, you may feel a vibration, or hear a large noise.
Regardless of which type of engine failure, pilots are well trained to handle them as handled by the airbus crew. Pilots go through training for engine failures & fires every six months. Engines failures are also rare. Because the A-380 is still a new airplane is why the story is getting so much attention. Flying remains the safest mode of transportation.