Two Boeing jets suffered issues within hours of each other on Thursday, potentially adding fresh woes to the company's recent safety concerns.
First, the pilot on a SouthWest Airlines (SWA) Boeing 737 abandoned take-off at Texas Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport after a flame shot out of an engine on Thursday at around 7pm (ET).
Two hours later, an All Nippon Airways (ANA) Boeing 787 reported an oil leak on arrival at Naha Airport, Japan.
Boeing has faced scrutiny over issues with many of their planes over the past months. In January, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 was forced to make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport after a portion of its fuselage ripped off. The airline subsequently said it was grounding all of its 737 MAX 9 planes.
The SWA flight was just about to lift-off for Las Vegas when it returned to the departure gate after crew onboard reported a suspected fire.
"The flight crew reported a possible engine fire shortly after the plane taxied from the gate. Lubbock Fire Rescue responded, and was on stand-by as the plane returned to the gate on its own power," a SWA spokesperson told Newsweek.
Passenger Lisa Powell told ABC News. the plane had reached "the acceleration part of take-off...and you could hear a 'thump', and the plane swerved and we came to a stop."
She added: "It didn't seem scary. We thought a tire had blown out...but the pilot came on and said the engine had ingested something, and a flame had come out."
Lubbock Fire Services dealt with the alert at 7.30pm and there were no injuries. The runway was closed for clean-up, and Lubbock Airport said all passengers had safely deplaned and Southwest was working to get them on other flights.
At Naha Airport, on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the Boeing 787 had arrived from Osaka's Itami Airport when the suspected oil leak was investigated.
The airport temporarily closed the runway for cleaning and reopened it an hour later. The airport said: "We don't think there will be a major impact on flights," according to the Okinawa Times.
Newsweek contacted ANA, Naha Airport, Lubbock Airport and Lubbock Fire Services by email for comment.
Boeing told Newsweek in an email it would "defer to the airlines," in regards to making any public comments about the incidents.
Outgoing Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has described Boeing's list of safety concerns as a "crisis" facing the company, which staff are handling well.
"This company and our people have responded to the crisis like no group of employees I've ever seen or been around," Calhoun said on MSBNC's Squawk Box in March. "They certified the airplane, they started up a factory from zero, they created a shadow factory to get our planes back into the field, they created another shadow factory to basically rebuild all of our 787s, a hundred of them."
Four days after the January 5 emergency landing at Portland International Airport, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines reported several Max 9 crafts were found to have loose bolts on their door plugs.
Then, on January 13, another ANA faced problems when it was forced to cancel its take-off after a window in the cockpit cracked.
Other reports of Boeing issues include:
- A Puerto Rico-bound flight from Miami being grounded when images on social media showed flames coming from the Boeing 747-8 cargo plane, and crew later detected an engine failure.
- The front nose wheel of a Boeing 757 falling off and rolling away on a Delta Airlines flight headed to Colombia from Atlanta.
- Stuck rudder pedals on a Boeing 737-8 from Bahamas to New Jersey
- A Boeing 777 flight from San Francisco to Japan being forced to reroute to Los Angeles immediately after take-off when one of its wheels fell off.
- Fifty people suffering injuries on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner going from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand, when a mid-flight technical issue caused the craft to drop mid-flight.
Boeing revealed a line-up of changes to its company leadership as a result, including Calhoun's decision to leave the top job at the end of the year.
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Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more
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