Boeing remains under scrutiny for yet another incident of a plane that had to ground because of a safety issue.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that one of the company’s 737-700 aircraft, operated by Alasa Airlines, had an engine give out while in the air on Sunday August 25. The plane departed from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington state that afternoon, bound for Oakland.
But the flight took a detour back to the airport when crew members reported a problem with one of the engines. An airline spokesperson later confirmed that the plane’s left engine had failed shortly after takeoff.
Although Boeing is not responsible for having built (and potentially overlooked) the engine fault, it is the latest in a long list of incidents involving the commercial plane manufacturer that is ripping apart its reputation. The engines on the 24-year-old aircraft were reportedly built by CFM International.
The FAA revealed that the Alaska Airlines Flight 1240 successfully turned around and landed at the Seattle airport between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. The federal agency is planning to investigate the incident. In a statement, an airline spokesperson gave “credit to the crew” for its response to the situation and “landing safely,” “without incident.” Flyers were able to take another flight to Oakland soon after the engine failure.
But this is far from the first safety concern for which Boeing has been scrutinized. Earlier this year, another plane 737 operated by Alaska Airlines made an emergency landing when a door panel flew off in the middle of a flight, tearing a hole in the plane. As of April 2024, plane regulators have investigated at least six separate incidents concerning Boeing aircraft.
The safety incidents include failed engines, an engine cover falling, lost wheels, and even a nosedive in the middle of a flight—all of which occurred with Boeing planes this year. There is also an ongoing legal battle related to two deadly Boeing 737 Max crashes—one in October 2018 in Indonesia and another in March 2019 in Ethiopia—which killed a total of 346 passengers.
In June 2024, the families of victims demanded that the Department of Justice (DOJ) be fined $24 billion in its criminal trial, describing the tragedy as the “deadliest corporate crime in US history.” The DOJ had previously determined that the recent and repeated safety failures of Boeing planes were in violation of an agreement they had in 2021, which prevented the company from being charged in the 2018 and 2019 crashes.
The victims’ families’ attorney said that the “appropriate action” would now be to engage in “aggressive criminal prosecution” against the company, not excusing the former CEO and other corporate leaders from a jury trial.
In September 2020, an investigative report from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure wrote that the plane manufacturer was responsible for “repeated and serious failures.” These liabilities, according to the committee, include “faulty technical assumptions” from company engineers, a “lack of transparency” among Boeing’s management team, and “grossly insufficient oversight by the FAA.”
