Amid brewing controversy inside courtrooms concerning the quality of aircraft manufactured, the drama on the tarmac does not appear to end for Boeing. This time, in an incident from Johannesburg, South Africa, a Safair flight that was taking-off from the Johannesburg Airport, lost one of its wheels, leading to serious concerns.
In this case, the ground personnel are said to have identified the damage and informed the pilots. Fortunately, the aircraft returned and landed safely. No one was injured in this particular incident; however, it resulted in flight delays.
Many have reacted to the incident, calling for caution and scrutiny of the maintenance staff, along with others responsible for the accident. According to some analysts, this if not averted at the right time, could have resulted in a disaster, leading to multiple deaths.
This, for many observers, was a ‘Deja vu’ moment, as it is a repeat of happenings from March 2024. A month ago, shocking visuals emerged of a wheel dropping off from a United Airlines flight in San Francisco. The flight had already taken off when the incident happened.
In another major incident, one of Boeing’s flights had its doors fly off mid-flight on an Alaska Airline flight. Given the severity of this incident, the aircraft manufacturer had to ground all the flight of the same model, for an interim period.
This development comes at the back of growing pressure on the company, as it has been embattled by accusations of dearth in quality of their jets.
(The article is published under a mutual content partnership arrangement between The Free Press Journal and Connected to India)