Posted on 06/26/2024 11:09:00 AM PDT by Red Badger
A Korean Air Boeing 737 Max 8 experienced a sudden emergency shortly after taking off from Incheon International Airport, plummeting 26,900 feet before making multiple erratic loops before stabilizing.
The plane, which departed from Incheon International Airport at 4:45 p.m. local time on Saturday, suffered issues with its pressurization system while flying over South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju.
According to data from Flight Radar, the plane began descending sharply, dropping nearly five miles in 15 minutes.
Commercial jet airliners typically cruise at altitudes ranging from 30,000 to 40,000 feet. So, assuming the aircraft was flying at the upper limit of this range, it would rapidly descend to 14,000 feet within 15 minutes.
Fifteen passengers suffered injuries ranging from severe hyperventilation and eardrum pain, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport,
Independent reported:
Passengers on the Korean Air flight KE189 finally arrived safely in Taichung, Taiwan, a day after it was diverted back to the Incheon International Airport.
Korean Air, in a statement shared with The Independent, said:
Despite the frightening ordeal, there were no major injuries reported. The flight resumed the next morning with a different aircraft, following investigations into the incident by Korean Air.
Passengers described scenes of panic and distress onboard, with oxygen masks deployed and children crying during the sudden descent. One passenger, who was identified as Tseng by The Taipei Times, told the outlet that children on the flight were crying when oxygen masks were deployed during the flight’s plunge.
Meanwhile, a Korean Air spokesperson was reported as saying that the airline is conducting a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the pressurization system malfunction, intending to address any maintenance issues before returning the aircraft to service.
“17 passengers have been attended to by medical professionals in Korea, and have been discharged without severe injuries.”
Watch
VIDEO AT LINK....................
The news comes just days after we reported a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 flew less than 500 feet to a residential neighborhood after taking a sudden dive mid-flight.
Just last month, another Southwest 737 experienced what’s known as a “Dutch roll” – an dangerous in-flight aerodynamic oscillation that led to damage to the aircraft, The New York Times reported.
The latest incident occurred shortly after midnight on Wednesday when Southwest Airlines flight 4069 was landing in Oklahoma City.
When the plane 737 reached a minimum altitude of below 500 feet, it set off altitude alerts with the air traffic control tower.
So which was it?
1. Plunges
2. Plummeting
3. Descending sharply
4. Rapidly
Korea airlines has a DEI hiring program?
Who knew?
It was a reporter with a thesaurus.
The suicide of Boeing - (or was it more like murder)
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/
Hot kimchi in the hanboks !
Good thing the airplane was not flying at a lower altitude....
I’m sure the design and production teams are far more diverse and inclusive, so this is the price of progress.
The P51 Mustang went from a yellow sketch pad to full scale production in less than six months. They estimate it would take more than nine years to do that today. One might question the value of our technological advancements such as computers, design software, materials selection, and group-think?
Boeing Boeing Boeing
For a few years, in the late 60s and early 70s, I had to fly to Oak Ridge via the Knoxville airport twice a month...
At least 3 times, that I can specifically remember, banking into that area we experienced down-drafts that lasted for a few hundred feet...
That was quite a thrill...
I cannot imagine what a drop of several thousand feet must have felt like...
At least the passengers had time to bend over and kiss their butt goodbye...
26,900 foot descent in 15 minutes is 1800 ft/min. They needed to get to 10,000 feet so they were likely leveled at about 37,000 feet.
That’s a very normal idle descent, not a max descent, and probably without using any wing spoilers.
Given the shallow descent (probably for passenger comfort) it doesn’t sound like it was more than a precautionary call from strictly a systems point of view to declare an emergency but declaring an emergency was justified. They didn’t want to risk delaying the descent and they were returning to their departure point for repairs, meaning lots of coordination with ATC, so they benefited from getting traffic priority.
The fact that the passenger O2 masks deployed means they likely had a cabin above 14,000 feet at some point unless they were electrically deployed from the cockpit (seems unlikely). That alone would justify declaring an emergency. The O2 for the passengers is chemically produced and lasts for about 15 minutes. It’s not necessarily enough O2 to keep passengers conscious but should be enough to keep passengers alive until a lower altitude is reached.
As for whether this was a “Boeing problem” that’s also unlikely. But that never stops the scientifically ignorant media from sensationalizing the narrative to reinforce the drumbeat of negative publicity surrounding Boeing.
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