Achi news desk-
Curated By: Shankhyaneel Sarkar
Last Updated: March 29, 2024, 3:27 pm IST
New York, United States of America (USA)
US President Joe Biden landing from Air Force One en route to Washington, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, USA. (Image: Reuters)
US President Joe Biden joked about steering clear of Boeing’s doors amid recent mid-flight accidents.
US President Joe Biden joked on Thursday that he is not standing by the doors of Boeing’s Air Force One, as the planemaker tries to emerge from a series of recent mid-flight mishaps .
His quip came during a fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall. CBS “Late Show” host Steven Colbert asked him if transportation secretary Pete Buttegieg had tightened the bolts on Air Force One before it traveled to New York City.
“I’m not sitting by the door… I’m just fooling around. I shouldn’t joke about that,” Biden said at the fundraiser, joking about the plane maker’s latest troubles. Boeing also manufactures the Air Force One which is one of two highly customized Boeing 747-200Bs made by the company.
Boeing has been under fire since the January 5 mid-flight crash in which a door blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 passenger plane operated by Alaska Airlines. Following the incident, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 9 for weeks. National Transportation Safety Board findings showed that bolts were missing from the rear door of the Alaska Airlines jet.
A week later a Boeing plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Japan due to a crack in the cockpit window. In January, a Boeing 757 operated by Delta Airlines and bound for Bogota, Colombia lost its front tire while departing from Atlanta International Airport. A passenger from the UK also shared a video after noticing pieces of tape on the outside of a Boeing 787 during his trip to India.
Earlier this month, a United Airlines Boeing 777-300 suffered a midair fuel leak and was forced to make an emergency landing.
Dave Calhoun, the CEO, said this week that he will leave the troubled aircraft maker at the end of the year. Calhoun – a veteran crisis manager – was hired in 2020 to steer the airline out of a reputational impasse after crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed nearly 350 people and grounded its best-selling 737 MAX jet.
(with input from the New York Post and Reuters)
