A United Airlines flight UA166 from Fukuoka, Japan to Guam was forced to make an emergency landing approximately half an hour after departure from Fukuoka airport yesterday, after the crew of the Boeing 737-800 passenger jet communicated some “flaps issue” to flight control.
On Thursday morning, a Boeing 737 jet, operated by Air Senegal, veered off the runway while taking off from Blaise Diagne International Airport (AIBD), about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Dakar, Senegal. The flight was bound for Bamako, Mali, with a total of 73 passengers and six crew members on board. The passengers and crew were evacuated from the burning aircraft, but unfortunately, eleven people sustained injuries, with four of them hospitalized in a serious condition.
Earlier this week, a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800 experienced a front tire blowout, upon its Wednesday arrival at Gazipasa-Alanya Airport (GZP) in southern Turkey. Fortunately, all 190 individuals on board were safely evacuated. However, the wheel hubs have suffered significant damage, as reported by the GZP officials.
Also on Wednesday, flight FX6238 from Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG), operated by FedEx Boeing 767 aircraft, had to make an emergency landing at Istanbul Airport (IST) in the Arnavutköy district on the European side of the city. However, due to a technical problem, the front landing gear of the aircraft could not be deployed, as stated by the Istanbul airport operator. Istanbul Airport CEO said that it took a whole day for the airport to remove the aircraft that was blocking Runway 16R.
All those latest accidents have brought a renewed attention to the US aerospace giant’s production woes.
Following the recent announcement by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding its investigation into a Boeing factory , a series of problems have emerged. The US federal regulator apparently discovered that employees at Boeing’s South Carolina facility, responsible for manufacturing the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, may have neglected mandatory inspections and falsified records. Boeing, has also previously acknowledged difficulties with the wide-body 787, while attributing challenges to disruptions in the production of a crucial component.
In 2019 and 2020, Boeing Company had incurred significant losses as a result of the grounding of all 737-MAX planes by the US Federal Aviation Administration, following a series of tragic accidents that involved Boeing aircraft.
Boeing 737 MAX aircraft has a rather disturbing record of accidents, with two of them resulting in numerous fatalities. One 737 MAX crashed in Indonesia nearly six years ago, in October of 2018, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board. On March 10, 2019, another 737 MAX, this time operated by Ethiopian Airlines, also crashed shortly after takeoff. All 157 people on board ET302 have lost their lives in the crash.
The FAA eventually attributed the crashes to a combination of faulty sensors and software issues, while Boeing has consistently maintained the complete safety of their planes.
Nevertheless, leaked internal memos and whistleblowers’ statements have indicated otherwise, contradicting the company’s statement
Over the past three months, two whistleblowers from Boeing have tragically passed away.
On May 2, Joshua Dean, aged 45, unexpectedly succumbed to antibiotic-resistant pneumonia. As a former employee of Spirit AeroSystems, he had raised concerns regarding inadequate standards in the production of the 737-MAX.
Another whistleblower, John Barnett, tragically passed away in March, shortly before he was scheduled to provide testimony in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company. He was a former quality control manager at Boeing. The authorities have ruled the incident to be a case of suicide.
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