Boeing 737 Max windshield cracks mid-flight

The 737-8 MAX aircraft, operated by Smartlinks Airlines Malta, suffered a windshield crack at an altitude of more than 8,500 meters while flying from Istanbul to Stuttgart.

More fear than harm. Mid-flight, when he was at an altitude of more than 8,500 meters, the Maltese pilot of Smartlinks Airlines noticed a crack in his aircraft’s windshield, The Aviation Herald, reported Monday 19 February. Fortunately, the window did not completely split and there were no problems with depressurization.

The aircraft, a Boeing-designed 737-8 Max, was able to land calmly and safely on the runway at Stuttgart Airport in Germany about 25 minutes later. It connected the German city from Istanbul, Turkey. The plane from Smartlynx Airlines Malta, the Maltese subsidiary of Latvian company Smartlynx, was flying on behalf of Turkish Airlines, as part of a cooperation agreement that air carriers often sign among themselves.

“Employees reported a crack on one of their windshields,” cites The Aviation Herald, a site specializing in the publication of incident reports in commercial aviation. The plane stayed on the ground at Stuttgart for about five and a half hours before returning to Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen International Airport.

“It’s still on the ground in Istanbul, about 16 hours after it landed,” the site indicated around noon this Monday.

A frequent occurrence

Although alarming, this type of incident happens regularly. In any case multiple reports of windshield cracks attest to this.

On February 8, a crack was reported during a flight between Milan and Muscat in Oman, operated by a Boeing 787-9 of the company Oman Air. On January 29, a similar incident was reported, this time on a domestic flight in Argentina, by a JetSmart Airbus A320-200.

American aircraft manufacturer Boeing has had several setbacks with its 787 aircraft in recent years. But this new phenomenon seems less alarming than the previous ones that happened until recently. For example, on January 5, an Alaska Airlines airliner lost an in-flight evacuation door. The aircraft involved was a Boeing 737-9 Max.

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