The incident at Germanys Frankfurt Airport has left several Lufthansa staff members injured, the airline says
Several crew and staff members received injuries when the front landing gear of a Boeing 787 unexpectedly collapsed while the aircraft was parked at a gate at Frankfurt Airport, aviation news outlets report, citing the aircraft's operator, Lufthansa.
The incident on Thursday, which occurred before passengers boarded the LA-bound aircraft, adds to mounting concerns over Boeing's safety and quality-control standards, following a series of similar cases in recent years.
Dramatic footage apparently captured by the airport's CCTV cameras and shared on social media shows the nose of the plane suddenly dropping onto the tarmac while parked at the gate. The video appears to show a panel coming loose as the plane settles onto the ground.
"Passengers had not yet boarded, crew members and ground staff were on board the aircraft at the time of the incident," Lufthansa said in a statement, as cited by Breaking Aviation News & Videos.
The company said the circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated in cooperation with the authorities.
The aircraft involved in the incident is a relatively new Boeing 787 which was built last year and entered service with Lufthansa in February, according to data from Flightradar24.
Boeing has come under increasing pressure over its manufacturing practices, with former employees alleging systemic production shortcuts, overlooked defects, and weak quality control across its aircraft programs.
The incident in Frankfurt follows several high-profile events involving Boeing 787 Dreamliners in recent years. In March 2024, at least 50 people were injured when a Latam Airlines Boeing 787 flying from Australia to New Zealand suddenly nosedived. Last June, an Air India Boeing 787-8 crashed in Ahmedabad, India, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and at least 19 people on the ground in the first fatal Dreamliner accident since the aircraft entered service in 2011.
Boeing has also faced scrutiny over other aircraft types. In January 2024, a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, forcing an emergency landing. The company is still grappling with the fallout from two fatal 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people and grounded the model worldwide for nearly two years.
(RT.com)
