Still
reeling from the January 5 incident in which a door panel blew off an Alaska
Airlines plane midflight, the Boeing Company is now facing another crisis.
The
wing of a Boeing-manufactured
United Airlines flight came apart and forced it to be diverted and make an
emergency landing.
Flight 354 was on its way from
San Francisco to Boston and was diverted to Denver. There were no injuries
reported.
The problem happened on a
February 19 flight.
One passenger took a video of
the flight. He said a new plane awaited Denver passengers to take them on to
Boston.
A United Airlines spokesperson
confirmed the incident.
"On
Monday, United flight 354 diverted to Denver to address an issue with the slat
on the wing of the aircraft," the spokesperson said. "The flight
landed safely and we arranged for a different aircraft to take customers to
their destination, which arrived in Boston later that night."
The
Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.
Boeing’s
manufacturing and safety protocols have been heavily scrutinized. The Boeing
757-200 plane was in a different family of airplanes than the beleaguered 737
Max 9 jets.
Passenger
Kevin Clark wrote on social media that he was sitting right above the wing and
that, at one point, the pilot came to look at the damage.
"He
goes behind me and I was kind of sleepy, so I wasn’t paying much attention at
that point, but then he goes back to the cockpit and he comes on the PA and
says, 'We’ve discovered we have some damage on one of the front flaps and we’re
going to divert to Denver and put you all in a different plane,'" Clarke
said.
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