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Last weekend, the cabin of a Korean Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 lost pressure during
a flight from Seoul to Taiwan, after which the aircraft had to descend quickly
and then turn around. Several passengers were injured.
 
Korean Air KE189, a MAX 8 with registration HL8352, took off from Incheon
International Airport near Seoul to Taichung International Airport, on the
west coast of Taiwan, on Saturday afternoon around 5 p.m. for a planned
journey of more than two hours.
 
After about fifty minutes, while the aircraft was flying over the Korean
island of Jeju, an alarm went off in the cockpit about a loss of cabin
pressure. The pilots responded immediately by descending sharply, from 30,000
to 30,000 feet in 15 minutes. They also decided to return to Seoul in
consultation with air traffic control.
 
The cabin crew abruptly stopped the meal service while the oxygen masks came
down from the panels. The large pressure difference due to the rapid descent
led to a lot of physical discomfort among the passengers, with nosebleeds and
sore ears.
 
After the safe arrival at Incheon, thirteen of the 125 passengers had to
undergo hospital treatment; none of them suffered serious injuries.
 
Korean provided overnight accommodation for the passengers and deployed
another aircraft the next morning, again a Boeing 737 MAX 8, registration
HL8351, which flew to Taiwan without any problems. The airline apologized
profusely to customers and promised to investigate the cause of the defect.
 
The incident comes at a painful time for Boeing from a publicity perspective.
Also last weekend, US prosecutors recommended that the Justice Department in
Washington sue the manufacturer over the two fatal crashes involving MAX 8
aircraft in 2018 and 2019, which left 346 dead.
 
Boeing is said to have violated the terms of a settlement on the case in 2021.
The company then agreed to pay $2.5 billion in compensation to the surviving
relatives. In exchange, any criminal charges would be dropped after three
years, provided Boeing complied with a number of provisions.
 
The ministry recently came to the conclusion that this did not happen. “Boeing
failed throughout its operation to implement an ethics program designed to
detect and prevent violations of U.S. anti-fraud regulations.” The
manufacturer denies that it has not adhered to the conditions. Outgoing CEO
Dave Calhoun acknowledged last week during a hearing in the US Senate that his
company had made major mistakes, but added that Boeing has learned from its
mistakes.

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