A Boeing 747 cargo plane from the American airline Atlas Air made an emergency landing late Thursday in Miami, after an engine malfunction occurred shortly after takeoff, the company told AFP on Friday.
The plane “landed safely after experiencing an engine malfunction shortly after departure,” an Atlas Air spokesperson said in a statement.
“The crew followed all standard safety procedures and returned safely to Miami airport,” he added, specifying that the airline would investigate the causes of this malfunction.
The American Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency (FAA) confirmed the incident that occurred on the flight to Puerto Rico, and announced that it was launching investigations into it.
Asked by AFP, the Boeing company referred the matter to the airline.
The American aviation giant is under a formal investigation by the FAA into a possible failure in its quality controls, following an incident that occurred in early January on a 737 MAX 9.
A door came loose from the cabin of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight that was to connect Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California. The incident caused only minor injuries and the plane was able to land safely at its original airport.
The FAA has ordered the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft in the United States until further notice, and launched an investigation into the incident, the first major flight safety problem on a Boeing plane since the fatal 737 crashes. MAX in 2018 and 2019 which led to a long immobilization of the plane.
