Free Republic

(Reuters) - Southwest Airlines grounded 81 aircraft from its Boeing 737 fleet for inspection after a gaping hole in the fuselage forced one of its planes to make emergency landing in Arizona on Friday, the company said on Saturday. Southwest (LUV.N) and Boeing (BA.N) engineers will inspect the aircraft to try to determine the cause, Southwest said in a statement. Passengers heard a loud noise and suddenly saw a hole about mid-cabin. Southwest Airlines is working with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration on the ground in Arizona to determine the cause of a sudden drop...

A commercial flight from Phoenix to Sacramento this afternoon had to be diverted to an airport in Yuma due to rapid cabin decompression that may have been caused by a hole in the jet’s fuselage. The Southwest flight landed safely at 4:07 p.m. at the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station/International Airport. One of the passengers told CBS13 about the frightening emergency. “They had just taken drink orders when I heard a huge sound and oxygen masks came down and we started making a rapid decent. They said we’d be making an emergency landing,” said Cindy. “There was a hold in...