Second scare for Air France in the space of a few days. A Boeing 777-200 connecting Los Angeles to Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport had to land urgently Thursday evening. The airline explains that the plane “landed in Montreal after four hours of flight” after a “hot smell” was felt on board the aircraft. The French company assures that the landing and the handling of passengers took place in accordance with “the manufacturer’s procedure, Air France’s instructions as well as the precautionary principle”. On X (formerly Twitter), images show the presence of firefighters on the tarmac. Last Tuesday, a Boeing 787-900 from the French company – initially flying from Paris to Seattle (United States) – had already made an emergency landing in Iqaluit, Canada, for the same reason, before being inspected by mechanics.
Regarding Thursday’s incident, the airline specifies that “the plane landed at 10:13 p.m. without problem, in complete safety. The procedure involves passengers being greeted by firefighters. They were disembarked quickly and were able to collect their luggage. The approximately 315 travelers on board flight AF21 were “rehoused and fed”. However, still on X, a worried passenger demands explanations from the company, claiming that their luggage was not loaded in Los Angeles.
The American Civil Aviation Agency (FAA) notably announced on Monday the opening of an investigation against Boeing to determine whether the aircraft manufacturer had carried out the required inspections of its emblematic 787 “Dreamliner”.
Air France is not the only company to have suffered from incidents on the fleet of the American manufacturer Boeing this week. On Wednesday May 8, in Istanbul, a cargo plane operated by FedEx coming from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport was forced to land without a front wheel, the landing gear door not having deployed. No injuries to report, but impressive images which are unlikely to do any harm to Boeing’s reputation. The next day, an Air Senegal airliner, bound for Mali, went off the runway, causing 11 injuries, four of which were serious, at Diass international airport near Dakar. The authorities of Senegal indicated this Friday that they had opened an investigation to determine the causes of the incident involving this Boeing 737-300.
