South Korean airline Korean Air said it is investigating a pressurization accident on one of its Boeing 737-8s that injured 17 passengers and forced the plane to make an emergency landing back at its point of departure.
IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
The accident occurred on Saturday, about 50 minutes after the flight from Seoul-Incheon to Taichung, Taiwan, took off with 125 people on board, an airline spokesperson confirmed to AFP on Tuesday.
Seventeen passengers had to be treated because of the pressurization failure, but suffered no serious injuries, the airline said.
“We are fully cooperating with the relevant authorities to shed light on the circumstances of the accident,” added Korean Air, which apologized to all those involved.
A series of tragedies
Boeing has had a series of manufacturing and quality control problems with several models of its commercial airplanes for several months.
Last week, the manufacturer’s CEO, Dave Calhounacknowledged in a hearing in the United States Senate the “seriousness” of the situation in this sector.
In January, a door on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 broke off in mid-flight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
In mid-May, the US Department of Justice warned of the risk of criminal proceedings against the plane maker for failing to comply with a settlement reached in January 2021 following the 2018 and 2019 crashes of two 737 MAX 8s, which caused the death of a total of 346 people.
