Boeing 737 Max 8 ran off Texas runway ‘into grassy area’, says United Airlines

A United Airlines plane ran off the runway in Houston, Texas, on Friday, the latest incident in a week of safety issues for the airline, all involving Boeing planes, that included a tire falling off, a flaming engine and allegedly “stuck” controls.

The Boeing 737 Max 8, carrying 160 passengers and six crew, was landing at George Bush intercontinental airport on Friday morning when it “left the pavement and entered the grass” while exiting the runway for the gate, airport officials said in an interview.

In a separate statement, United Airlines said: “After landing, UA2477 exited the taxiway into a grassy area. Customers deplaned using air stairs and are being bused to the terminal.” It added that all passengers were safe.

On Thursday, a tire fell off a United Airlines plane seconds after it had taken off from San Francisco international airport. The tire, one of six on the left side main landing gear assembly, dropped into a staff parking lot, where it hit a car, broke the rear window, then tore through a fence and rolled to a halt.

An airport spokesperson said there were no injuries and that the Japan-bound Boeing 777, which was carrying 235 passengers and 14 crew members, landed safely in Los Angeles afterward. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate.

United Airlines said that it “quickly arranged” for a new airplane to bring passengers to Osaka and did so later on Thursday evening.

“We’re grateful to our pilots and flight attendants for their professionalism in managing this situation. We’re also grateful to our teams on the ground who were waiting with a tug to move the aircraft soon after it landed and to our teams in the airport who assisted customers upon their arrival,” United said in a statement. “We will work with customers as well as with the owners of the damaged vehicles in SFO to ensure their needs are addressed.”

The tire incident itself came less than a week after passengers on a United Airlines flight from Houston, Texas, to Fort Myers, Florida, saw orange flames bursting from one of the plane’s engines 20 minutes after takeoff. The Boeing 737-900 made a safe emergency landing at George Bush intercontinental airport.

The incident seems to be a compressor stall, which occurs when there’s a disruption of airflow in the engine prompting it to backfire, “but doesn’t mean the engine itself is on fire”, NBC News said.

On Thursday, the National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report into a 6 February incident in which pilots of a Boeing 737 Max 8 said the controls jammed as they tried to land. It said the pilots reported “‘stuck’ rudder pedals during the landing rollout”, according to CNN.

Boeing declined to answer questions, directing comment to United Airlines.

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Alan Price, a former chief pilot for Delta Air Lines, told the Associated Press that a loose tire is typically related to maintenance, and is not the manufacturer’s fault.

John Cox, a retired pilot and aviation safety professor at the University of Southern California, expressed similar sentiments, saying to the AP: “I don’t see any impact for Boeing as it was a United maintenance team that changed the tire.”

Nevertheless, the incidents are Boeing’s latest safety issues in what has developed into a public relations headache for the aviation giant. During an Alaska Airlines flight on 5 January, the door plug on a nearly new 737 Max 9 blew out, forcing an emergency landing. Safety officials’ preliminary report determined that four key bolts were missing.

The incident rekindled safety concerns over Boeing’s marquee airliner following the crashes of two Max 8 jets in 2018 and 2019, which left 346 dead.