Boeing 737: Plane slides off runway in Senegal, tire bursts in Turkey | Aviation News

Accidents involving Air Senegal and Corendon Airlines put the aircraft manufacturer in crisis due to its poor safety record.

Two Boeing 737 passenger planes were involved in takeoff and landing accidents in Senegal and Turkey, raising further questions about the plane maker’s safety record.

In Senegal, a Boeing B737-300 plane chartered by Air Senegal skidded off a runway before early takeoff on Thursday at Blaise Diagne International Airport in the capital Dakar.

There were 85 people on board the flight operated by TransAir to the Malian capital Bamako – including two pilots and four cabin crew. At least ten people were injured, the Ministry of Transport said.

Photos showed the damaged plane sitting in a meadow with a damaged wing and emergency exit slides extended.

Videos shared on social media appeared to show a burning left wing. The plane was later cordoned off with red and white tape, the Reuters news agency reported.

The facility was closed after the accident but reopened at 11:00 a.m. GMT, the airport operator said.

In Turkey, 190 people – including six crew members – were safely evacuated from a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800 after a tire on the plane burst while landing at Gazipasa, an airport near the Mediterranean coastal city of Alanya, on Thursday.

Corendon Airlines denied Turkish media reports that the plane, which arrived from Cologne, landed on the nose of the plane. The Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure reported damage to the aircraft’s nose gear.

Flights were diverted to nearby Antalya airport while the plane was removed, the ministry said.

It was the second incident at a Turkish airport in just a few days. On Wednesday, a FedEx Boeing 767 cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Istanbul Airport after its front landing gear failed. No one was injured and the crew was able to evacuate the aircraft safely.

Typically, manufacturers are not involved in the operation or maintenance of jets once they enter service, but Boeing has been under intense media and regulatory scrutiny after a series of incidents involving its 737 planes.

In January, a door panel on a Boeing 737 Max flew out during an Alaska Airlines flight. The mid-air explosion followed two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

Further damaging the company’s image, aviation safety officials in the United States are currently investigating whether Boeing employees falsified inspection records for the 787 Dreamliner.