Shocking footage has emerged of a Boeing plane appearing to leak jet fuel from its landing gear shortly after taking off.
It’s the latest setback suffered by the embattled company after several incidents affecting its planes have sparked safety concerns among passengers and in the industry.
The United flight was forced to make an emergency landing due to the incident which was the fifth in just a week to affect a Boeing plane.
The San Francisco-bound flight made the emergency landing shortly after taking off from Sydney, Australia and was filmed trailing fuel from its landing gear.
The plane safely landed at Sydney Airport with no injuries, according to officials, however, another flight – also out of Australia – was not so lucky.
On Monday, one of the company’s flagship 787 Dreamliners experienced a “technical event” that caused “a strong movement” that sent at least one passenger jolting into the aircraft’s ceiling after the plane apparently nosedived.
Around 50 passengers were injured and treated by emergency personnel and at least five remained in the hospital. The plane is said to have dipped violently while flying, according to LATAM airline and first responders speaking to AFP.
The news comes just days after a Boeing whistleblower was found dead due to an apparent suicide in Charleston, SC, after claiming that the company was using sub-par parts on its airplanes.
Following the incident, Boeing lost more than $4 billion overnight Monday as its stocks dropped over four percent on Tuesday morning.
The cause of the two issues remains unknown but both are under investigation. It comes as the FAA said the company had failed 33 of 89 audits during an exam of Boeing’s 737 Max.
These are just the latest in a series of incidents that have sparked safety concerns among passengers and within the industry.
On January 5, a Boeing plane used by Alaska Airlines suffered a blowout seven minutes after takeoff from Portland, Oregon forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing.
Boeing has been under increased scrutiny since the incident when a panel that plugged a space left for an extra emergency door blew off a Max 9 jet. There were no serious injuries.
The day before the blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, engineers and technicians at the airline wanted to remove the plane from service to examine a warning light tied to the plane’s pressurisation system, but the airline kept flying the plane and scheduled a maintenance check for late the following night, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Before that could happen, however, a door-plug panel blew off the jet 16,000 feet (4,800 meters) over Oregon.
Alaska told The Associated Press that the maintenance plan “was in line with all processes and procedures. Nothing required or suggested that the aircraft needed to be pulled from service.”
