A Boeing 747 cargo plane from the American airline Atlas Air made an emergency landing late on Thursday, January 18 in Miami, after an engine malfunction that occurred shortly after takeoff, the company said on Friday.
According to a recording of approximately six minutes of exchanges with the control tower published on the specialized site liveATC.net and consulted by AFP, the pilot of the aircraft warned of an "
engine fire
", after having launched a
mayday, mayday
distress call
.
He then requested authorization to return to land at the airport and specified in particular, in response to the air traffic controller, that he had “
five souls on board
”.
Opening an investigation
The plane “
landed safely after experiencing an engine malfunction shortly after departure
,” an Atlas Air spokesperson said in a statement.
“
The crew followed all standard safety procedures and returned safely to Miami airport
,” he added, specifying that the airline would investigate the causes of this malfunction.
The American civil aviation regulatory agency (FAA) confirmed the incident which occurred around 03:30 GMT (04:30 French time) Friday on this flight to Puerto Rico, and announced that it was launching investigations into it.
Asked by AFP, the Boeing company referred the matter to the airline.
In an incident report published on its website, it specified that an inspection carried out after the theft had spotted a "
hole the size of a softball (about a grapefruit, Editor's note) above engine number 2
”.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has also opened an investigation.
She simply stated that she was “
gathering information to evaluate and determine the extent of the investigation
” to be carried out.
For its part, the aircraft manufacturer Boeing assured “
to support (its) customer
” and said that it would “
collaborate in the NTSB investigation into this incident
”.
Repeated accidents for Boeing
The American aviation giant is under formal investigation by the FAA into a possible failure in its quality controls, following an incident that occurred in early January on a 737 MAX 9. A door was damaged. detached from the cabin of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight which was to connect Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California.
The incident caused only minor injuries and the plane was able to land safely at its original airport.
The FAA has ordered the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft in the United States until further notice, and launched an investigation into the incident, the first major flight safety problem on a Boeing plane since the fatal 737 crashes. MAX in 2018 and 2019 which led to a long immobilization of the plane.