Boeing's Woes Refuse To Go Away

Boeing's woes simply refuse to go away!

In Senegal, a chartered Air Senegal Boeing B737-300 plane skidded off a runway before takeoff early on Thursday at Blaise Diagne International Airport in the capital, Dakar.

Eight-five people – including two pilots and four cabin crew – were on board the flight operated by TransAir and bound for the Malian capital Bamako. At least 10 people were injured, the transport ministry said. 

The photo above showed the damaged plane at a standstill in a grassy field with a damaged wing, its emergency exit slides deployed. 

Videos shared on social media appeared to show a left wing on fire. 

The aircraft was later cordoned off with red and white tape, the Reuters news agency reported.

In Türkiye, 190 people – including six crew members – were safely evacuated from a Boeing 737-800 belonging to Corendon Airlines after one of the aircraft’s tyres burst on Thursday during landing at Gazipasa, an airport near the Mediterranean coastal town of Alanya.

Corendon Airlines denied Turkish media reports that the aircraft, which had arrived from Cologne, Germany, had landed on its nose. Türkiye’s Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure had reported damage to the plane’s nose landing gear.

Flights were diverted to nearby Antalya airport while the aircraft was removed, the ministry said.

A Boeing 767 cargo plane had reportedly landed at Istanbul Airport, also in Türkiye without its front landing gear.

 

A video on social media showed the aircraft belonging to FedEx Express using the back landing gear and then dipping its nose with the front portion of the fuselage. 

 

The plane was on the last leg of its flight from Paris, France to Istanbul when the pilots realized the front landing gear failed to open, state-run news agency Anadolu said. 

 

There were no casualties and authorities had launched an investigation, the Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday. It was not clear why the failure occurred.

 

A day earlier, an Air France plane – a Boeing 787 – was stranded in Canada's deep north following an emergency landing. 

 

About six hours into what should have been a nine-and-a-half-hour flight to Seattle in Washington, USA from Paris, a burning smell and smoke were detected onboard, including the cockpit. Pilots quickly resorted to their oxygen masks and prepared for an emergency landing at the nearest available airport, which happened to be in Iqaluit, per Business Insider. 

 

The remote town in Nunavut territory, which has a total population of less than 8,000, is often known as Canada's Arctic capital. The airline launched a rescue operation after the passengers were left stranded in the isolated region.

 

Manufacturers are not typically involved in the operation or maintenance of jets once they enter service, but Boeing have been under intense media and regulatory scrutiny following a very long series of incidents involving their planes. Like it or not, we cannot dismiss the fact that these are Boeing planes and the issues besetting them are neverending!