Boeing 737 Max planes (Image: Wikimedia Commons/CCL)
SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The transport ministry on Sunday ordered South Korean airlines to conduct safety checks on Boeing 737 Max planes in a preemptive safety measure following an emergency landing of a B737 Max 9 plane in the United States.
South Korean carriers do not have the same B737 Max 9 in their fleet. Currently, the country’s five airlines operate a total of 14 B737 Max 8s — five in Korean Air Co., four in Eastar Jet, two each in T’way Air Co. and Jeju Air Co., and one in Jin Air.
On Saturday (U.S. time), 171 B737 Max 9s were reportedly grounded for safety checks after Alaska Airlines’ B737 Max 9 carrying 171 passengers made an emergency landing due to a cabin panel blowout. Several passengers suffered injuries in the incident.
The rear mid-cabin exit door blew off from the fuselage of the U.S. carrier’s B737 Max 9 bound for Ontario, California, shortly after takeoff from Portland on Jan. 5, according to foreign media reports.
In response, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has ordered the five air carriers to check if their B737-8 jets’ fuselage have no structural defects, and whether the fuselage and the door are tightly attached with each other, a ministry official said.
“The B737 Max 9 and Max 8 are two different planes, but the government took a preemptive measure to prevent any similar incident (in Max 8 planes),” he said.
South Korea grounded the B737 Max in March 2019, after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that killed all 157 people on board. The deadly accident came less than five months after another B737 Max operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.
In November 2021, South Korea lifted the flight ban on B737 Max planes.
(Yonhap)
