With a fourth emergency in a single week, there’s a good reason that the United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is sitting at home, writing sayings such as “I’ve been here before and I can do it again” and “I don’t’ have to solve all problems in a single day.” Indeed, he might even be texting former United CEO Oscar Munoz telling him that just won the airline’s “CEO for a Day” contest.
Let’s review.
On Monday, a Boeing 757 operating as United Flight 214 suffered an engine failure while flying over the Pacific ocean en route to San Francisco from Honolulu. The aircraft was able to land safely in San Francisco after declaring a mid-air emergency some 270 nautical miles away from its final destination.
“On Monday afternoon, United flight 214 experienced an engine issue shortly before its arrival at San Francisco International Airport,: a spokesman from United told Frequent Business Traveler in a statement. “The flight landed safely and passengers deplaned normally.”
Also on Monday, a Boeing 737 operating as United Flight 1118 from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston was forced to turn around 12 minutes later after one of the aircraft’s engines caught fire.
“It was our left engine, our number one engine, that was surging when we were climbing through about 10,000 [feet], and flight attendants saw momentary flames back there,” a pilot can be heard saying on radio transmissions.
The aircraft was wheels down in Houston at 7:30 p.m., just 33 minutes after takeoff.
On Thursday, a United Airlines flight bound for Osaka, Japan from San Francisco made an emergency landing after losing a tire while taking off from San Francisco International Airport. The tire landed in an employee parking lot on several vehicles owned by airline employees.
Fire engines were standing by for the landing of Flight 35 but weren’t needed as the Boeing 777 operating as Flight 35 touched down. After passengers calmly exited the aircraft, the aircraft was towed to a hangar.
The plane “lost a portion of landing gear tire during takeoff,” around 11:35 a.m. Thursday as the flight departed, Doug Yakel, the San Francisco airport’s spokesman, told Frequent Business Traveler.
On Friday, a Boeing 737 Max 8 operating as United flight 2477 from Memphis to Houston skidded off the runway after landing at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
In what could only be described as a masterful understatement, a crewmember got on the PA and said, “”Hey, ladies and gentlemen. We realize something happened outside.”
A United Airlines jetliner taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport
A recording of radio transmissions between the cockpit and air traffic control that were shared online suggest that the plane suffered from a left main landing gear collapse. However, it is far from clear as to whether that is what caused the incident, or if it occurred as a result of the plane’s unexpected exit from the taxiway.
Also on Friday, United Flight 821, en route from San Francisco to Mexico City made an emergency landing after one of the hydraulic systems on the Airbus A320 failed. The A320 has three such systems for redundancy purposes, and, in a statement provided to Frequent Business Traveler by the airline, it said that “[P]reliminary information shows that there was only an issue with one system on the aircraft.”
In Houston, no injuries were reported among the 160 passengers and six crew members, the airline said in a statement.
As if this all were not enough, the National Transportation Safety Board announced late this week that it wasinvestigating an issue with “stuck” rudder pedals that United pilots reported experiencing during a landing rollout last month.
This icing on the cake concerned itself with United Flight 1539, which had flown from Nassau, Bahamas, to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on February 6, where the captain of the Boeing 737 Max 8 reported that, during the landing rollout, the rudder pedals did not respond to the application of foot pressure while there was an attempt to “maintain the runway centerline,” according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report released Thursday.
One could easily believe that Kirby read Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” – even writing one meditation into his diary – before retiring for bed Friday night.
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
[Editor’s note: For those who missed Latin class the day this was covered, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperor and the last emperor of the Pax Romana.]
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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