An Alaska Airlines flight headed to Oakland, California, on Sunday was forced to turn around due to engine trouble and return to Seattle, Washington, leaving one passenger saying she heard “an ear-piercing bang.”
The plane, a Boeing 737-700, was en route to San Francisco Bay International Airport in Oakland when the crew identified and reported a “possible engine problem.”
Despite the apparent problem, Alaska Air Flight 1240 landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport around 1:30 p.m. that same day, according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration.
According to Alaska Airlines, the flight’s number one engine, on the left side of the plane, shut down.
One passenger on the plane, Steven France, wrote about his experience after the ordeal was over, revealing that “just after takeoff, we experienced a piercing bang.”
An Alaska Airlines flight headed to Oakland, California, on Sunday was forced to turn around due to engine trouble and return to Seattle, Washington.
Alaska Air Flight 1240 landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, pictured, around 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Flight radar records show the plane circled over Seattle several times before making its final descent. It was airborne for less than half an hour.
In a Facebook postFrance also confirmed that the plane lost its number one engine.
Flight tracker data confirms the plane was in the air for less than half an hour, taking off at 1:04 p.m. and landing in Seattle at 1:30 p.m.
Flight radar records show the plane flew over Seattle several times before making its final descent.
France thanked the captain and first officer “for their skills and training and for returning our damaged aircraft safely to the ground and saving 110 passengers and five crew members.”
Alaska Airlines also issued a statement.
“The crew should be given credit for following standard procedures for this situation and landing safely without incident,” the airline said in a statement. “We are working to care for our passengers and accommodate their travel to Oakland yesterday afternoon, and we apologize for the inconvenience.”
The FAA said it will investigate the incident.
This comes months after a door plug exploded in mid-flight on another Alaska Airlines flight at a terrifying altitude of 16,000 feet.
This incident, which occurred on January 5, happened just minutes after the California-bound plane took off from Oregon.
Some passengers had their clothes and phones sucked in, while others were injured when the gaping hole caused a sudden decompression.
This Alaska Airlines flight, a Boeing 737 Max, took off on January 5 and one of the door plugs, pictured, exploded mid-flight.
Pictured: The crash site of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. The plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 and crashed six minutes after takeoff on March 10, 2019. All 149 passengers and eight crew members were killed on impact.
Because it was another Boeing-made plane, the FAA immediately grounded 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft and has been pursuing…aggressive supervision‘ of the company.
It is unclear how Sunday’s incident will affect this ongoing investigation.
Boeing has suffered a series of setbacks and bad press that have sent its stock plummeting more than 30 percent so far this year.
Last month, the company agreed to a $243.6 million plea deal. This would allow the company to avoid a criminal prosecution for two fatal accidents of the 737 Max, one in October 2018 and the other in March 2019.
All of this comes on top of numerous Boeing commercial jetliners that suffered terrible mid-flight failures, whistleblowers who mysteriously died and testimony from former CEO Dave Calhoun that was poorly received on Capitol Hill.
John Barnett, left, was a Boeing whistleblower who committed suicide earlier this year. Joshua Dean, right, died in late April due to a sudden illness.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun takes his seat to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Investigations Subcommittee with protesters in the hearing.
Boeing faced another blow on Saturday when NASA announced it would rely on SpaceX to rescue Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the crew of Boeing’s Starliner-1, from the International Space Station.
The astronauts were launched into space on June 5 aboard the Boeing Starliner-1, but the spacecraft suffered serious failures with its thrusters.
Their mission was supposed to last just eight days, but due to the Starliner failure, Wilmore and Williams will have to wait until February 2025 to return home.
They will travel in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
This flight was supposed to be the final hurdle Boeing had to clear before NASA felt comfortable certifying the Starliner to transport astronauts to and from the space station on a regular basis.
SpaceX, for example, has been flying NASA astronauts to the space station since 2020.
It’s unclear how NASA will move forward with the Starliner certification process.
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