Tires smash cars
Boeing loses aircraft part again
March 8, 2024, 2:47 p.m
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In January, a part of a Boeing plane broke off during a flight, and now a tire comes off during takeoff. While the plane was still taking off, the tire fell into a parking lot and destroyed several cars. The American aircraft authority warns Boeing to urgently end the series of mishaps.
A technical breakdown during a Boeing flight has once again caused a stir: a tire fell off on a Boeing 777 plane while taking off from San Francisco. She therefore had to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles, as the local station Kron4 reported. The United Airlines plane was actually supposed to fly to Osaka, Japan. A video circulating online shows the machine’s tires falling off just seconds after starting. It landed in an airport parking lot and damaged several employees’ cars.
The plane was diverted to Los Angeles, around 600 kilometers south in the US state of California, where it made a safe emergency landing. There were apparently no injuries in the incident. The plane has six tires on each side of the main landing gear and is designed to land safely even if one or more of the tires is missing or damaged, United Airlines said. According to United Airlines, there were 249 people on board the plane.
Dangerous series of breakdowns that have been going on for years
On January 5th, part of the cabin wall of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 flew out shortly after takeoff from Portland in the US state of Oregon. The plane then had to turn around and make an emergency landing in Portland. Although no one was injured in the incident, experts say it could have resulted in a catastrophe.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) then ordered a temporary grounding of 737 MAX aircraft. This lasted 19 days and affected 171 aircraft. Last week, the authority also gave the US aircraft manufacturer a 90-day deadline to substantially improve its quality controls. The company must commit to “real and profound improvements,” the FAA said.
The Boeing 737 MAX had already caused massive problems for Boeing in recent years. After two plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia with a total of 346 deaths, a global ban on flights of this type was imposed in March 2019, which was only lifted at the end of 2020 after technical revisions.