Given the intense
scrutiny that aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing is currently under, it can’t
really afford further reports of near-disasters involving its airplanes to keep
cropping up. And yet, ever since the door
panel popped out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 model plane mid-flight,
depressurizing the cabin and forcing an emergency landing, other unnerving
incidents seem to be continually coming out of the woodwork.
And, this week was
no exception. The first occurred aboard a United
Airlines Boeing 737, which had to make an emergency landing just minutes after
taking off from Houston on Monday after one of its engines exploded and burst
into flames in flight. During what must have been some truly terrifying moments
in mid-air, bright orange sparks could be seen erupting out several feet from beneath
the left wing, disturbingly close to the passenger windows.
In video footage of
the incident, a crewmember can be heard over the aircraft's intercom saying, “Hey
ladies and gentlemen, we realized something happened outside.” A passenger aboard
the imperiled flight, Dorian Cerda, told reporters that they were only about 15
minutes into what would have been a two-hour flight to Fort Myers, Florida when
the plane was forced to turn back.
United Airlines
told The
Independent that, “the flight landed safely and the passengers deplaned
normally”, adding that the carrier, “arranged for a new aircraft to take our
customers to their destination.” While the cause of the combusted engine has
not yet been revealed, the reason for the blaze is currently under
investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Flames of a burning airplane engine as seen from a passenger window. (Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/irontrybex)
Then, on Thursday,
another accident involving one of United’s other Boeing-produced planes occurred
in California. This time, it was a landing gear wheel that fell off during liftoff.
Flight UA35 had just taken off from San Francisco, bound for Osaka, Japan, at
11:00 a.m. local time when one of its six landing gear tires flew off and fell into
a nearby parking lot, damaging several cars in the process.
USA
Today reported that the Bay Area runway was briefly shut down so that
ground crews could clear away any ancillary debris that may have resulted from
the mishap. The incident caused the flight to divert to Los Angeles, where fire
engines stood ready for any resulting problems, before continuing on its transpacific
crossing. Airport spokesman Doug Yakel told The
Independent that no one was injured as a result of the tire coming loose,
even if some parked cars had gotten smashed up.
FAA spokesperson Tony
Molinaro confirmed that the agency has launched an investigation into Thursday’s
incident, while United Airlines promised to work with the owners of the damaged
vehicles “to ensure their needs are addressed”. “We’re grateful to our pilots
and flight attendants for their professionalism in managing this situation,” the
carrier said in a statement. “We’re also grateful to our teams on the ground
who were waiting with a tug to move the aircraft soon after it landed and to
our teams in the airport who assisted customers upon their arrival.”
United also said
that the Boeing 777-200 is designed to land safely in spite of some damaged or
missing tires. "In aviation, we never want to have single points of
failure if they can be avoided, and this is a case in point," Alan Price,
a former chief pilot for Delta Air Lines, told the Associated Press. "The
remaining tires are fully capable of handling the load," he said, adding
that this was the result of a maintenance, rather than a manufacturing, issue.
Aviation expert
David Evans explained that a commercial jetliner losing a wheel is a rare
occurrence, saying, "From time to time, this sort of thing does happen but
it's usually uneventful at the end of the day." He said United did "the
right thing" by rerouting to a nearby airport before making its transpacific
flight to make sure "it's not something more serious".
This wasn’t the year’s
first report of a tire popping off of its plane. In January, a Boeing 757 lost
its nose wheel, which “came off and rolled down the hill” on an Atlanta runway prior
to the plane taking off. In that case, passengers were deplaned and transferred
to another flight, but the incident likewise prompted an FAA probe.
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