An Alaska Airlines flight bound for Oakland, California, had to turn around on Sunday due to an engine problem and return to Seattle, Washington.
A passenger on board the Boeing 737-700 reported hearing a “piercing bang” after takeoff for San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport when the crew detected and reported a “possible engine problem.”
According to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Alaska Air Flight 1240 landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 1:30 p.m. that same day.
Alaska Airlines said the number one engine on the left side of the plane had been shut down.
One of the plane’s passengers, Steven France, wrote about his experiences after the ordeal was over, revealing that “immediately after takeoff, we heard a piercing bang.”
An Alaska Airlines flight to Oakland, California, was forced to turn around and return to Seattle, Washington, on Sunday due to an engine problem.
Alaska Air Flight 1240 landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday (see picture).
Radar recordings show that the plane circled Seattle several times before making its final descent. It was in the air for less than half an hour
France also confirmed in a Facebook post that the plane had lost its main engine.
Flight tracking data confirms that the plane was in the air for less than half an hour. It took off at 1:04 p.m. and landed back in Seattle at 1:30 p.m.
Flight radar recordings show that the plane circled Seattle several times before its final descent.
France thanked the captain and first officer “for their skill and training and for bringing our damaged aircraft safely back to the ground and rescuing 110 passengers and five crew members.”
Alaska Airlines also issued a statement.
“Commendations are due to the crew who followed standard procedures in this situation and landed safely without incident,” the airline said in a statement. “We addressed our guests’ needs and facilitated their travel to Oakland yesterday afternoon and apologize for the inconvenience.”
The FAA said it would investigate the incident.
Previously, a few months ago, on another Alaska Airlines flight, one of the door plugs had burst at a frightening altitude of 5,800 meters.
This incident occurred on January 5, just minutes after the plane took off from Oregon, bound for California.
Some passengers had their clothes and phones sucked out, others were injured when the gaping hole caused sudden decompression.
This Alaska Airlines flight, a Boeing 737 Max, took off on January 5th and one of the door plugs pictured flew out mid-flight
Pictured: The crash site of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. The aircraft was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 and crashed six minutes after takeoff on March 10, 2019. All 149 passengers and 8 crew members died on impact
Because it was another aircraft manufactured by Boeing, the FAA immediately ordered groundings for 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft and has been pursuing “aggressive oversight” of the company ever since.
It is unclear what impact Sunday’s incident will have on the ongoing investigation.
Boeing has suffered a series of setbacks and bad press that have caused the company’s stock price to fall by more than 30 percent since the beginning of the year.
Last month, the company accepted a settlement of $243.6 million This would allow the company to avoid criminal proceedings over two fatal crashes involving a 737 Max, one in October 2018 and the other in March 2019.
Add to that numerous Boeing commercial aircraft have suffered horrific in-flight malfunctions, company whistleblowers have mysteriously died, and former CEO Dave Calhoun’s testimony on Capitol Hill was poorly received.
John Barnett (left) was a Boeing whistleblower who took his own life earlier this year. Joshua Dean (right) died of a sudden illness in late April.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun takes his seat to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as protesters sit in the audience.
Boeing suffered another blow this Saturday when NASA announced that it would rely on SpaceX to rescue Boeing Starliner-1 crew Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station.
The astronauts launched into space on June 5 aboard the Boeing Starliner-1, but the spacecraft experienced serious engine malfunctions.
Their mission was supposed to last only eight days, but due to the defective Starliner, Wilmore and Williams will have to wait until February 2025 to return home.
They will fly in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
This flight was to be the last hurdle for Boeing to overcome before NASA would approve the Starliner for the regular transport of astronauts to the space station and back.
SpaceX, for example, has been bringing NASA astronauts to the space station since 2020.
It is unclear how NASA will proceed with the Starliner certification process.
