hull22

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...326-story.html

Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane — the same model that has been grounded after two recent crashes — made an emergency landing Tuesday afternoon at Orlando International Airport, a spokeswoman said.

There were no passengers aboard. Two pilots were flying to California when they encountered engine problems about 10 minutes after takeoff, said Rod Johnson, spokesman for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.

They turned around and landed safely, Johnson said. It happened around 3 p.m.

According to the online flight-tracking serviceFlightAware, the plane was going to Victorville, Calif., which is about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles. It was being flown there for storage, Johnson said.The Federal Aviation Administrationconfirmed the emergency landing in a statement.

“The crew of Southwest Airlines Flight 8701, a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, declared an emergency after the aircraft experienced a reported engine problem while departing from Orlando International Airport in Florida about 2:50 p.m. today,” the statement said. “The aircraft returned and landed safely in Orlando. No passengers were aboard the aircraft, which was being ferried to Victorville, Calif., for storage. The FAA is investigating.”

Dan Landson, a spokesman for Southwest, said it was a “ferry flight” to California for temporary storage. He said the pilots followed protocol and there were no injuries.

“The Boeing 737 MAX 8 will be moved to our Orlando maintenance facility for a review,” Landson said.

According to a March 13FAA order that grounded all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in the country, airlines are allowed to fly the planes without any passengers to a base for storage or maintenance.

The emergency landing comes as federal regulators continue to investigate two deadly crashes involving the plane model. Aviation authorities across the globe grounded Boeing 737 Max aircraft following the crashes in Ethiopia and off the coast of Indonesia.

A Lion Air flight crashed into the Java Sea after taking off from an airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 29, killing 184 passengers and five crew members. On March 10, an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Kenya crashed six minutes after takeoff, killing 149 passengers and eight crew.

Southwest has 34 Max aircraft. On Saturday, the company began flying them to a facility in Victorville, without passengers, to free up space at the airports where they had been parked.One runway at OIA is closed while officials conduct an inspection. No other flights were affected, said GOAA spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell.

Southwest and American Airlines are the two largest domestic owners of 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft, and are among five airlines that were flying the planes out of Orlando International Airport prior to their grounding, along with WestJet, Air Canada and Gol.

ursine1

While likely a minor event and seemingly unrelated to the MCAS issues, from a PR standpoint this is not good.

Betterthanyou

I get that there were no pax and that this was not a revenue flight...but WHY would the FAA grounding not also cover relocation flights? After all, plane crashes kill people on the ground too.

ursine1

The grounding order was issued while planes were in the air. All of the MAX aircraft have to be stored somewhere until the issue(s) are addressed, so ferrying flights are allowed.

This incident (reportedly involving an engine) is likely unrelated to the issues the caused the grounding. Flights make emergency landings all the time.

PAX62

Because the Max planes are not just falling out of the sky arbitrarily. The problem has now been identified as a know glitch in the auto pilot system and while the automation system does need to be addressed before they can return to passenger service, they are fully capable to fly by pilots that now know how to deal with the potential problem and overcome the anomoly for a ferry flight.

Sorry, but this is another case of sensationalism irresponsible journalism just looking for clicks praying on the fears of general public. I am a pilot and an "emergency" is declared any time the is a problem or potential problem to return to the airport. Declaring an "emergency" or making an "emergency landing" does not mean there is an ACTUAL emergency, it is however a declaration whereby allows ATC change the flight plans and reroute the plane back to the airport with priority handling otherwise it s a "wait your turn" with other arriving traffic.

ATC will actually declare an emergency on behalf of pilots even if none has been made as it gives them much more leeway in providing services to that aircraft.

That is like reporting there were no injuries because the "Check Engine" light came on in your car. Sad.

Tanic

Emergency declaration most certainly does mean that there is an emergency. There are other means to gain ATC priority and urgency without an emergency declaration. Also an emergency declaration can exist in the absence of air traffic control, as well as ATC declaring an emergency on behalf of the pilot without the pilot's concurrence. Pilots are enabled to exercise the emergency flight provisions contained in F.A.R, 91.3 which are not otherwise available in the absence of an emergency.

steved5480

Special Airworthiness Certificate -- Special Flight Permit

PAX62

...sorry, should have qualified...declaring an emergency does not ALWAYS mean there is an actual emergency.

Precautionary landings are made daily under the "emergency" declaration. Yes, a pilot has final authority under FAR 91.3 but for ATC to have that same authority to help the pilot the declaration needs to be made. TRACON Supervisor once told me that if there is an inkling of a problem where you would be hesitant otherwise, declare... it frees ATC up to help you much quicker.

My point being that the media is praying on the phraseology of the use of the word "emergency" and "emergency landing" to the unsuspecting general population and inferring every instance is a life or death scenario for sensationalism and that is far from the case...especially here.

LegalTender

Actually, the word is "preying" and the story did not portray a life or death scenario. It properly described an engine loss and a safe emergency landing. There were no control issues of the sort that led to MAX groundings.
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Tanic

Media sensation is a money maker and Walter Cronkite is dead. However, the cavalier actions of both Boeing and FAA have earned all the bad press they have coming.

PAX62

LegalTender

WN 8701: "We just lost our right engine..we need to declare an emergency."

If you're an Orlando news editor, you assign people to find out what the hell is going on. A one-engine landing can be ignored with a MD88. With a MAX8, it's a story. They closed a runway at MCO to look for more of the debris that was sucked into the engine.

I don't see the "sensationism" at all.

c5ruzr

It's still not MCAS related. And the news knows that the MAX headline wil draw some attention. If they include such statements in their story, it's appropriate to report the incident.

MSPeconomist

ursine1

Southwest has not received ETOPS certification for their MAX aircraft.