In the US, a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft has had to make an emergency landing in an overpass due to engine problems. The machine of the US airline Southwest Airlines had to turn around shortly after takeoff from Orlando airport in the US state of Florida. Then safely landed again in Orlando, said a spokesman for the US aviation authority FAA.
No passengers on board
The airline itself stated that there were no passengers on board, only crew members. The plane was therefore on the way to a camp site in Victorville, California, where discarded or repaired aircraft are housed.
The affected machine will now be moved to the maintenance area at Orlando Airport and examined there. According to spokesman, the pilots had reported shortly after the start in Orlando problems with one of the engines and were therefore reversed.
Two crashes in a short time
Within just a few months, two Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Numerous countries, including the USA, therefore issued flight bans for this model. However, flights without passengers are allowed to transport these aircraft, for example for temporary storage, to another location – as in the case of the Southwest machine.
An Ethiopian Airline Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed in Ethiopia on 10 March. 157 people died. A few months earlier, a plane of the same type crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people. It is believed that the control software MCAS, which was specially developed for the new 737 Max aircraft series, could have been an important trigger for the accidents.
