SYDNEY, Nov 22, 2008 (AFP) - A Qantas jumbo jet carrying 213 passengers aborted a flight shortly before takeoff from Sydney Saturday when an engineer spotted that one of its wings was damaged, the airline said.

The New Zealand-bound Boeing 747-300 was taxiing towards the runway when damage to a right wing flap was noticed by an engineer on the ground and the pilot was alerted, Qantas said.

"It was a technical issue with the wing prior to departure," an airline spokeswoman told AFP.

All passengers on the plane had been provided with accommodation and booked on another flight on Sunday morning, she said, and the cause of the damage was being assessed.

The incident is the latest in a series of problems suffered by Australia's troubled national airline in recent months.

On Tuesday, two Qantas jumbos were damaged when they collided on the ground at a maintenance base.

In October, a computer glitch caused a Qantas plane to plunge into a 200-metre mid-air nosedive, injuring more than 70 people, with some suffering broken bones.

In July, a Qantas Boeing 747-400 made an emergency landing in Manila after a mid-air blast caused by an exploding oxygen bottle punched a hole in the fuselage during a flight from Hong Kong to Melbourne.