FAA investigating loss of panel before Boeing 737-800 landed safely in Oregon
The US Federal Aviation Administration is investigating how a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 lost an external panel before landing safely in Oregon.
United flight 433 landed at Medford airport at about 1.45pm on Friday carrying 139 passengers and six crew after departing from San Francisco, the FAA and airline said.
Continue reading...New scrutiny of planemaker’s 787 Dreamliner over terrifying drop adds to safety crisis after cabin panel blowout on 737 Max 9 jet
Another Boeing jet is facing scrutiny after the planemaker reportedly told airlines to check the cockpit seats of 787 Dreamliners following a terrifying drop during a flight from Sydney to Auckland.
Dozens of people on Latam Airlines Flight 800 were said to have been hurt this week when the plane fell sharply, throwing passengers around the cabin.
Continue reading...John Barnett was one of several people who raised alarm in 2019 about concerns of safety lapses at Boeing’s North Charleston plant
A former quality manager at Boeing who became a prominent whistleblower and raised concerns over the planemaker’s production line has been found dead.
John Barnett died on Saturday from what appeared to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to officials in Charleston, South Carolina.
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Continue reading...Defence force aircraft draws fresh criticism as Christopher Luxon joins Ardern and Key in list of leaders held up by ageing planes
New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon was forced to travel on a last-minute commercial flight to Australia for a summit on Tuesday, after the country’s beleaguered defence force plane was once again grounded over maintenance issues.
The defence force loans planes to New Zealand leaders when they embark on international travel, but the ageing fleet has been plagued with problems in recent years – an issue that Luxon, the former chief executive of Air New Zealand, has previously labelled “incredibly embarrassing”.
Continue reading...Company accused of violations including Chinese employees improperly downloading files relating to Pentagon programs
Boeing said on Thursday it had reached a $51m settlement with the US state department for numerous export violations including Chinese employees in China improperly downloading documents related to US Pentagon programs.
The state department said from 2013 through 2017 three Chinese employees at Boeing facilities in China downloaded technical data involving programs including the F-18, F-15 and F-22 fighter jets, the E-3 airborne warning and control system, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and the AGM84E cruise missile.
Continue reading...US justice department scrutinizing whether door blowout violated 2021 agreement with Boeing after two fatal plane crashes
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is giving Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building new planes, as the justice department reportedly reviews whether a mid-flight plane door panel blowout in January violated a previous settlement agreement between the company and the US government.
The FAA said on Wednesday that the directive follows meetings with top Boeing officials, including the company’s chief executive at FAA headquarters in Washington.
Continue reading...National Transportation Safety Board says four bolts meant to hold door plug of 737 Max 9 in place were apparently absent
A cabin panel that blew off a brand-new Boeing 737 Max 9 jet mid-flight appeared to be missing four key bolts, according to an initial report by the US safety regulator.
The bolts meant to hold the door plug in place were absent, the National Transportation Safety Board said. It released photographic evidence alongside the preliminary findings of its investigating on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Aircraft maker suspends financial guidance as it grapples with ‘serious challenge’ of winning back trust amid 737 Max 9 crisis
Boeing faces a “serious challenge” to win back the confidence of regulators and airlines, its CEO has said, as the aircraft maker faces intense scrutiny after a cabin panel blowout.
Dave Calhoun acknowledged the business has “much to prove” since a brand-new 737 Max 9 jet was forced into an emergency landing earlier this month.
Continue reading...US regulator makes announcement hours after CEO says planemaker will only allow jets to fly when ‘100%’ certain of safety
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved an inspection and maintenance process to allow grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to return to service, following a cabin panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight.
“The exhaustive, enhanced review our team completed after several weeks of information gathering gives me and the FAA confidence to proceed to the inspection and maintenance phase,” FAA administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement.
Continue reading...Delta Air Lines jet was due to depart Atlanta international airport and none of the crew or passengers were hurt
A nose wheel fell off a Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 passenger jet and rolled away as the plane lined up for takeoff over the weekend from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport in the US, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
According to a preliminary FAA notice, none of the 184 passengers or six crew members aboard were hurt in the incident.
Continue reading...All Nippon Airways flight was en route to Toyama airport when crack found in window of Boeing 737-800
A domestic flight of Japan’s All Nippon Airways returned to its departure airport on Saturday after a crack was found on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft midair, a spokesperson for the airline said.
Flight 1182 was en route to Toyama airport but headed back to the Sapporo-New Chitose airport after the crack was found on the outermost of four layers of windows surrounding the cockpit, the spokesperson said, adding there were no injuries reported among the 59 passengers and six crew.
Continue reading...Planes await inspection by aviation regulators after panel blowout on Alaska Airlines flight amid heightened safety concerns
Boeing must acknowledge “our mistake”, its CEO has said, after the cabin panel of a 737 Max 9 jet blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight last week.
Dozens of Max 9 planes have been grounded following the incident, awaiting inspection amid heightened concerns around safety. Alaska and United Airlines have since both found loose parts on several jets.
Continue reading...Person who found phone posted that it was ‘in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim’
The US’s National Transportation Safety Board says it has recovered a working iPhone that “likely” fell from the Alaska Airlines flight that required an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, over the weekend after a passenger plane’s door panel blew out while midair.
An NTSB spokesperson issued a statement about the phone to the Guardian after the newspaper asked about a social media user’s viral post which described finding the device on the side of the road.
Continue reading...Boeing faces fresh scrutiny after door panel blows out of brand new plane, leaving a hole ‘the size of a refrigerator’
US aviation investigators were on the ground in Oregon on Sunday trying to figure out what caused a door panel to blow out of a brand new Boeing passenger jet just minutes after takeoff, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing with a hole “the size of a refrigerator” in the side of the plane.
The American jet maker was facing fresh scrutiny as regulators temporarily grounded the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft after a section of a plugged exit door on an Alaska Airlines flight detached 16,000ft (4,877 meters) above Portland, Oregon, on Friday with 171 passengers and six crew on board. The weeks-old plane had been modified, requiring fewer emergency exits because it had fewer seats.
Continue reading...Nearly 200 planes grounded as FAA investigates Saturday flight from Portland, Oregon, in which a cabin panel blew out in mid-air
US regulators have ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft following a cabin panel blowout late Friday that forced a brand-new airplane operated by Alaska Airlines to make an emergency landing.
“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” said Mike Whitaker, a Federal Aviation Administration administrator, on Saturday. “Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s [National Transportation Safety Board] investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.”
Continue reading...Company and former CEO made misleading statements about the jets involved in two crashes that killed 346 people
Boeing and its former chief executive have settled an investigation by the US’s top financial regulator into allegedly misleading statements the planemaker and its then boss made about its 737 Max jets, involved in two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Boeing will pay $200m to settle charges that it misled investors and the former Boeing chief Dennis Muilenburg has agreed to pay $1m.
Continue reading...High-stakes test follows two years of delays in a program designed to give Nasa another vehicle for sending astronauts into orbit
Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule has docked for the first time with the International Space Station, completing a major objective in a crucial test flight into orbit without astronauts aboard.
The rendezvous of the gumdrop-shaped CST-100 Starliner with the orbital research outpost, currently home to a seven-member crew, occurred on Friday nearly 26 hours after the capsule was launched from Cape Canaveral US Space Force Base in Florida.
Continue reading...WSJ sources suggest black box recorders from Boeing 737-800 indicate intentional input from cockpit
A China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March, killing 132 people, appears to have been intentionally flown into the mountainside below by someone at the controls, according to reports.
Analysis by US officials of the black box flight recorders found amid the wreckage suggests deliberate input from the cockpit forced the Boeing 737-800 plane into its catastrophic dive.
Continue reading...Officials hope retrieval of one of two onboard flight recorders will shed light on crash in mountainous area of Guangxi
Chinese recovery crews have found one of the two black box flight recorders from the China Eastern Airlines jet that crashed on Monday with 132 people on board, regulators have said.
The domestic passenger plane plunged from more than 20,000ft into a mountainous area of Guangxi, sparking an intense bamboo fire and almost disintegrating on impact. Response officials said the circumstances of the crash meant investigators faced “a very high level of difficulty” in establishing a cause.
Continue reading...In the damning new Netflix documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, the errors and oversights that led to two crashes are examined
For the vast majority of travelers, stepping foot on an airplane entails a tremendous act of near-blind faith. We control our own cars, trains operate on set tracks at ground level, but flying requires us to put total trust in the expertise of a complete stranger to operate a machine too complex for us to understand. Every time these gargantuan hunks of metal don’t plummet screaming from the sky towards a certain fiery doom, it feels like a miracle, even if that’s how the majority of flights play out. Rory Kennedy’s damning new documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing takes a close look at two incidents included within the small number of flights when things go wrong, and shows us the tragedy that strikes when that sacred compact between passenger and airline is violated.
“I fly a good deal, and the truth is I’ve got a bit of a fear of flying,” Kennedy tells the Guardian from behind the wheel of her car, talking transit in transit. “I like to think that when I walk down that jetway, the manufacturer of that plane is invested in keeping it up in the air, that the regulatory agencies focused on safety are doing in their job, and that at least in our country, the government is making sure the regulatory agencies enforce those safety measures. In this case, it seems that all of those agencies failed us.”
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