Miami: An Atlas Air Boeing 747-8 cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Miami International Airport after one of its engines caught fire, adding another incident to Boeing's ongoing crisis. Several videos on platform X showed flames shooting out of the left wing of the aircraft mid-flight.
The videos show dramatic visuals of fire emerging from one of the engines of the Boeing aircraft shortly after takeoff from Miami, causing the plane to loop back for an emergency landing at the airport.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded and no injuries were reported, the airport told Reuters. It was not immediately clear how many crew were on board. "We can confirm that Flight 5Y095, a cargo aircraft, has landed safely after experiencing an engine malfunction soon after departure from Miami International Airport. The crew followed all standard procedures and safely returned to MIA," Atlas Air said in a statement, adding that it would conduct an inspection to determine the cause of the incident which occurred late on Thursday.
Here's a video of the incident
The aircraft was identified as a Boeing 747-8. which is powered by four General Electric GEnx engines. Boeing has declined to comment on the matter, while the responses of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and General Electric are yet to come. Boeing has been engulfed in a crisis since January 5 when an Alaska Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, after a piece of its fuselage broke off after take-off.
Boeing's ongoing crisis
The Alaska Airlines incident panicked airlines across the world and caused the FAA to temporarily ground 171 aircraft for safety checks. Boeing shares are down about 15 per cent since the Alaska Airlines incident. That Alaska Air plane is a newer version of the 737 than the one that Blinken had been set to ride on, which is an older model modified for use by the military.
However, the newer version has had serious problems since two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia during the period of 2018-2019 that resulted in the deaths of nearly 350 people. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun addressed the mid-air panel blowout incident from an Alaska Airlines jet, publicly acknowledging the company's mistake. He assured staff that Boeing would collaborate with regulators to prevent a recurrence of the incident. Expressing deep concern, Calhoun admitted to being "shaken to the bone" by the accident.
The crisis deepened as the United Airlines said it had found loose bolts on multiple grounded MAX 9 aircraft, raising new concerns among industry experts about how its best-selling jet family is manufactured. United, one of the two US carriers that fly this Boeing model with the panels, said its own preliminary checks found bolts that needed tightening on several panels. That disclosure heightened concerns about the production process of the MAX 9 jets that have been grounded.
Meanwhile, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expanding its probe into Boeing, including manufacturing practices and production lines. Last week, the FAA started an investigation into whether Boeing failed to ensure its planes complied with the agency’s safety regulations and also announced an audit of its production.
"After taking decisive action to ground 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX airplanes, the FAA is now investigating Boeing’s manufacturing practices and production lines, including those involving subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems, bolstering its oversight of Boeing, and examining potential system change," the FAA said in a statement Wednesday.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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