United Airlines reports fifth incident in over a week as US-bound flight returns to Australia

US News

By Richard Pollina

Not again…

A United Airlines Boeing 777-300 aircraft suffered a mid-air fuel leak and was forced to make an emergency landing Monday, marking the fifth incident the airline reported in less than a week.

United Airlines flight 830 took off for a 14-hour journey from Sydney to San Francisco, but only two hours into the flight, the plane had to be redirected over a “maintenance issue,” ABC 7 reported.

All 183 passengers and crew onboard “landed safely, and passengers deplaned normally at the gate,” a statement from the airline read.

No injuries were reported.

Monday’s incident is the latest in a string of mishaps suffered onboard a Boeing aircraft.

On March 4, a Boeing 737 was forced to make an emergency landing in Texas just minutes into its flight after flames exploded from one of its jet engines.

A shocking video from the ordeal showed flames spewing from the engine, appearing to get so hot that they appeared almost white against the night sky.

The plane was only “approximately 15 minutes” into the two-hour trip to Fort Myers, Florida, when the incident occurred. No one was injured in the terrifying ordeal.

On March 7, a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Japan was forced to divert to Los Angeles International Airport after one of the landing gears on the Boeing 777-20 fell off after takeoff.

Shocking footage shows the plane losing one of its six tires on the left side as it ascended.

All 235 passengers, 10 flight attendants, and four pilots on board safely landed at LAX.

The following day, United Flight 821 took off from San Francisco International Airport headed to Mexico City but was quickly diverted to Los Angeles “due to an issue with the aircraft’s hydraulic system.”

The Airbus 320’s hydraulic system suffered an issue in one of its three hydraulic units. The aircraft has multiple systems for redundancy.

The 105 passengers and five crew were evacuated, and customers had to travel to their destination on a new aircraft.

That same day, a United Airlines flight went off a runway at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, forcing passengers to evacuate.

The Boeing 737 MAX 8, arriving from Memphis, “rolled onto the grass when exiting onto the taxiway around 8 a.m.,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

No injuries were reported among the 160 passengers and six crew members.

In a memo to employees on Tuesday, Boeing said it is adding weekly compliance checks for every 737 work area and additional equipment audits to reduce quality problems.

“Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations,” the memo said.

“We will not hesitate in stopping a production line or keeping an airplane in position.”

The Federal Aviation Administration found dozens of issues throughout Boeing’s 737 MAX jet production process, including mechanics at one of its key suppliers using a hotel key card and dish soap as makeshift tools to test compliance.

The FAA discovered “unacceptable” quality control issues during an audit of Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems that was launched after a door plug flew off a 737 MAX 9 at 16,000 feet on Jan. 5.

One of its failures dealt with installing the plane’s door plug.

Pressure has continued to mount against the company, especially after a former quality inspector of three decades, John Barnett, was found dead from a “self-inflicted” gunshot wound in his truck in the parking lot of his South Carolina hotel on Saturday.

The engineer, who retired in 2017, was due in court to provide further testimony in his whistleblower lawsuit against the company but never showed.