Free Republic

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...

A Boeing 737 aircraft suddenly plummeted to less than 500 feet of the ground over Oklahoma, terrifying residents who feared the jet was going to crash. Southwest Airlines Flight 4069 was still nine miles away from Will Rogers World Airport just after midnight on Wednesday, when records show it dived to between 400 and 500 feet as it flew over a high school in the City of Yukon. Doorbell camera footage showed the Boeing 737 MAX-8 then hovering above houses, before it flies out of frame. A resident was startled awake by the plane's engine and wondered if the aircraft...

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft suffered a mid-air emergency on Friday after it plunged 16,000 feet, coming just 400 feet of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai due to adverse weather conditions. According to a Southwest Airlines memo to pilots, Southwest Flight 2786 from Honolulu International Airport to Lihue Airport in Kauai dropped from nearly 16,000 feet to an altitude of 409 feet.

As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits. One reason: Boeing charged extra for them. For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons. Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the...

A few hours ago Bloomberg broke a story, The Bloomberg story says that just one day before the fatal Lion Air accident, the very same airplane had suffered a similar pitch-control anomaly. But in this preceding case, an additional pilot, riding in the jump seat of the cockpit, recognized the problem and overrode part of the errant control system. The plane flew on to its destination. The Bloomberg story says: As the Lion Air crew fought to control their diving Boeing Co. 737 Max 8, they got help from an unexpected source: an off-duty pilot who happened to be riding...

The day before a brand new Lion Air jet crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Indonesia's capital city last fall -- likely due to an equipment malfunction -- an off-duty pilot reportedly helped save the aircraft when it began to dive. The extra pilot was on the flight from Bali to Jakarta and was seated in the cockpit jumpseat when the crew of the Boeing 737 Max 8 struggled for control of the aircraft, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. During the flight, the jet displayed unusual variations in altitude and airspeed in its first several minutes, Reuters previously...

Preliminary data retrieved from the flight data recorder of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed shows "a clear similarity" with an earlier disaster in Indonesia, Ethiopia's transport minister said Sunday. Dagmawit Moges told reporters that the Ethiopian government intends to release detailed findings within one month. "The black box has been found in a good condition that enabled us to extract almost all the data inside," she told reporters Sunday evening. Officials say 157 people from 35 different countries were killed when the Nairobi-bound plane crashed shortly after takeoff. The United States and many other countries then grounded the Boeing...

Much like many brand new commercial aircraft, Boeing’s 737 Max’s entry-into-service hasn’t been the smoothest — and the latest incident (in what is a string of 737 Max related events) took place earlier this morning, with a brand new Norwegian Air jet. Flying from Dubai (DXB) to Oslo (OSL), Norwegian Air’s two-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 encountered engine trouble, and following around 20 minutes of flying at its cruising altitude of 32,000ft…the newly built American jet initiated an emergency descent to Shiraz International Airport, located in south-central Iran. Before its landing, the aircraft circulated several times over the region, after...