Boeing, Boeing, gone! Plagued by daily mechanical failures and warnings a ... trends now

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 made an emergency landing at Denver International Aiport on Sunday after part of the engine blew off - marking just the latest in a litany of safety disasters for the aviation giant.

Indeed, it seems like every day beings a new mechanical failure for the firm, employing 170,000 people worldwide, that has left it facing an existential crisis and shaken its reputation for safety.

Since the turn of the year and near-fatal blowout in early January on an Alaskan Airlines flight, the $111.74billion company has had to deal with its troubled 737 Max line becoming rife with safety issues.

The company has even had to deal with the death of a whistleblower who claimed the firm was hiding institutional malpractice and who killed himself just days after giving evidence to a corporate lawsuit been brought against Boeing.

It has also been accused of letting safety lapse as it obsesses over 'woke' diversity targets in staffing, as well as over-paying executives working from home.

Current CEO Dave Calhoun announced last month he would be stepping down at the end of this year in a management overhaul, with share prices plunging.

And passengers are said to be deliberately changing flights to avoid Boeing's fleet or travelling with anti-anxiety medication.

A total of 246 people died in two crashes involving Boeing's flagship 737 MAX aircraft, on a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October 2018 and one operated by Ethiopian Airlines the following March.

Those prompted the grounding of all Boeing 737 airlines for 21 months but hazardous glitches have continued to affect journeys on a near-daily basis, the latest coming yesterday when an engine cowling fell off a plane in the US.

Series of safety alerts since the start of 2024 

Boeing's turmoil follows the Alaska Airlines emergency on January 5, when an emergency exit on a 737 MAX 9 jet blew off mid-flight in front of horrified passengers.

Some 171 planes among the firm's fleet were grounded pending safety investigations and the Federal Aviation Administration capped production of the aircraft.

About £24billion of market value was wiped out in a matter of days, while share prices have fallen by 25 per cent.

Boeing has also had to pay £127million to Alaska Airlines in 'initial compensation' due to the grounding and passengers on the plane have filed lawsuits, while the US Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation.

A door plug blew off on January 5 with 171 passengers and crew on board, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon.

The criminal probe will examine whether Boeing has met the conditions of the 2021 settlement reached after the 2018 and 2019 crashes that killed 346 people.

The first occurred when a MAX-8 operated by Indonesia's Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea in October 2018.

The second was when an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 crashed nearly straight down into a field six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa in March 2019.

Alaska Airlines also reported last month that the windshield of another Boeing 737 MAX-8 cracked as the plane descended into Portland International Airport.

That came not long after a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner over New Zealand plummetted 300ft, with more than 50 people hurt.

A Boeing 737 MAX-8 operated by United Airlines veered off the runway after landing in Houston, Texas, on March 8.

The aircraft, which arrived from Memphis, was said to have suffered gear collapse as it exited the runway at George Bush Airport, although the 160 passengers and six crew were not injured.

Earlier that same week there were two other incidents, one involving a 737 engine which caught fire after taking off from George Bush Airport bound for Fort Myers in Florida on March 4.

The second saw a 256lb wheel drop from a United Airlines plane, a Boeing 777-200, shortly after take-off in San Francisco and crushed cars parked below as it plummeted to the ground.

The United Airlines flight 35 was barely off the runway on its way to Osaka in Japan when it happened, prompting the plane carrying 235 passengers and 14 crew to be diverted to Los Angeles Airport.

Even more safety failures have followed, including when a Boeing jet had to make an emergency landing in LAX due to hydraulic issues, after taking off from San Francisco on March 9.

A United Airlines Boeing 777 en route to Japan from San Francisco was forced into an emergency landing in at LAX when it lost a tyre on March 11.

Another Boeing jet was forced to make an emergency landing in LAX after taking off from San Francisco due to hydraulic issues on March 9.

That same day, passengers on board a Latam Airlines from Sydney to Auckland were left traumatised after 50 were injured when their Boeing 787-9 plunged, throwing passengers against the ceiling, before landing safely.

An American Airlines Boeing 777 carrying 249 people was forced to make an emergency landing at LAX after a 'mechanical problem' on March 13.

Flight AA 345 was arriving from Dallas Fort Worth and landed in Los Angeles around 8:45 p.m.

The aircraft taxied along the runway and all passengers and crew onboard were able to disembark using a jet bridge, with initial reports suggesting the issue was a blown-out tyre.

And on March 29 another Alaska Airlines plane, flying from from Hawaii to Alaska, was forced to turn around after a bathroom flooded filling the aisles of the Boeing 737 MAX-9 jet with water.

The flight from Honolulu to Anchorage was 90 minutes into its flight when the forward bathroom of the aircraft suddenly began to malfunction, prompting the captain to turn back to Hawaii for the problem to be fixed.

The airliner previously suffered a near-catastrophe in January as a 737 MAX-9 plane door blew out at 16,000ft over Portland, Oregon, forcing an emergency landing.

Shocking footage showed the plane lying flat on its wings on grass by the side of the runway, while

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