As it continues to inspect its aging Boeing 737-300s for metal fatigue, Southwest Airlines is expected to cancel roughly 70 flights around the country on Monday.
That follows, Bloomberg reports, 600 flight cancellations over the weekend. The airline is trying to make sure there aren’t other fuselage cracks in its Boeing 737-300s such as the flaw suspected of causing a five-foot tear in one of its aircraft Friday afternoon, leading to a sudden depressurization and forced landing.
In response, the airliner quickly announced the grounding of 79 Boeing 737-300s for further inspection. Thus far Southwest has announced that it has discovered three other 737-300s with small, subsurface cracks. They will be repaired before returning to service. Thirty-three other 737-300s were inspected by late Sunday and returned to duty.
None of the 118 passengers was seriously hurt in the incident on Friday’s Southwest Flight 812, which was to carry passengers from Phoenix to Sacramento. The rupture opened up shortly after takeoff, and the plane landed instead at a military base in Yuma, Ariz.
There are 931 Boeing 737-300s in use worldwide, with 281 flying in American skies. This is the first documented incident of its type on the model, and federal officials are putting together a “service bulletin” to alert operators of 737-300s. The plane that landed at Yuma was about 15 years old and has gone through roughly 39,000 takeoff and landing cycles.
“What we saw with Flight 812 was a new and unknown issue,” said Mike Van de Ven, Southwest’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, in an Associated Press report. “Prior to the event regarding Flight 812, we were in compliance with the FAA-mandated and Boeing-recommended structural inspection requirements for that aircraft.”
