Recent malfunctions of planes in the airline industry have cast concerns on safety of planes.
Alaska Airlines Flight number 1282 deployed an emergency landing when the door plug came off mid-ascent on January 5th.
The flight was scheduled to travel from Portland to Ontario, but had to descend 20 minutes after takeoff after the hole in the aircraft decreased pressure, making the cabin unsafe for passengers. Due to the fact that nobody was sitting in the seats closest to the exit door that came off, no passengers were seriously harmed and everyone who was on the aircraft has been medically cleared.
This plane was a Boeing 737 Max 9, a model which has been under speculation for years due to ongoing mechanical issues.
The following day, Alaskan Airlines grounded their 65 Boeing 737 planes.. After careful examination, 18 planes were removed from service.
Weeks later, a Delta Airlines flight had to turn around before beginning its ascent when one of Delta’s Boeing 737’s lost a tire. The passengers safely evacuated and the plane was promptly grounded and analyzed.
“I feel unsafe going onto a plane now knowing that a door could fall off at any moment,” NHS sophomore Maddie Marcisz said.
Since inspections began, other airlines began their own analysis of the Boeing 737 planes they were using. United Airlines in particular suspended all 79 planes of this model in order to further analyze them for safety hazards. United admitted to having found several loose bolts amongst their 737 fleet. An estimated 700 flights were canceled worldwide as a result of the Boeing 737 issues.
“I think it is the bare minimum for all of the bolts to be secured. It’s something they should not mess around with,” NHS senior Ava Mitchell said.
These back-to-back issues and the continuous discovery of loose bolts have created many concerns regarding the Boeing 737 model that has been in public scrutiny for years.
In 2018, the Lion Air Flight 610 was responsible for 189 fatalities when it crashed in Indonesia, and shortly after the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in Jakarta and killed 157 people. Both of these planes were the Boeing 737 Max 8’s, and shut down the aircraft model until it began flying again in January 2023.
Recent events have shown that these models are still experiencing several problems and need to be further modified until declared safe. Budget cuts have been seen amongst airline companies due to a combination of global economic issues and people simply flying less after the pandemic.
“I think if the industry wants people to fly more and give them more income they should make sure the planes are safe. Who knows what could’ve happened if someone was sitting in that seat when the door flew off,” NHS senior Anita Erat said.
As prices of oil become higher and airlines lose customers, airlines cite increasingly difficult to do repeated safety checks on every aircraft despite how necessary they may be.
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