Flight Safety Information - May 12, 2025 No. 094 In This Issue : Incident: THY A21N at Prague on May 11th 2025, tail strike on go around : Incident: Vietjet A320 at Ho Chi Minh City on May 7th 2025, temporary runway excursion on landing : Incident: Arabia Abu Dhabi A320 at Thiruvananthapuram on May 9th 2025, hydraulic failure : Incident: Myanmar National B738 at Mandalay on May 6th 2025, rejected takeoff : Why The 737 MAX Has Been Such A Headache For Boeing : Why The Obvious Choice For A Boeing 757 Replacement Isn't So Obvious : Trump Loses His Cool Over Pushback to Qatar Jet Deal : Calendar of Events : TODAY'S PHOTO Incident: THY A21N at Prague on May 11th 2025, tail strike on go around A THY Turkish Airlines Airbus A321-200N, registration TC-LSL performing flight TK-1771 from Istanbul (Turkey) to Prague (Czech Republic), landed on Prague's runway 12 at 14:19L (12:19Z) when the crew initiated a go around, however the tail contacted the runway surface. The aircraft climbed out to 4000 feet, positioned for another approach and landed on runway 12 without further incident about 15 minutes later and taxied to the apron. The return flight TK-1772 was cancelled. https://avherald.com/h?article=52796394&opt=0 Incident: Vietjet A320 at Ho Chi Minh City on May 7th 2025, temporary runway excursion on landing A VietjetAir Airbus A320-200, registration VN-A666 performing flight VJ-1149 from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), landed on Ho Chi Minh City's runway 25R at 17:30L (10:30Z) but after touchdown veered right beyond the runway edge between 130 and 98 knots over ground before returning fully onto the runway and veering to but remaining within the left edge. The aircraft slowed without further incident and taxied to the apron. The aircraft is still on the ground in Ho Chi Minh City on May 11th 2025. Post flight examinations showed one runway edge light had been damaged. The CAA Vietnam grounded the aircraft for further examinations. https://avherald.com/h?article=527936b6&opt=0 Incident: Arabia Abu Dhabi A320 at Thiruvananthapuram on May 9th 2025, hydraulic failure An Air Arabia Abu Dhabi Airbus A320-200, registration A6-AUD performing flight 3L-249 from Thiruvananthapuram (India) to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) with 171 people on board, was climbing out of Thiruvananthapuram's runway 32 when the crew stopped the climb at 6000 feet due to a hydraulic failure affecting the landing gear and returned to Thiruvananthapuram for a safe landing on runway 32. The flight was cancelled. The aircraft remained on the ground for 52 hours then departed to Abu Dhabi. https://avherald.com/h?article=5278945a&opt=0 Incident: Myanmar National B738 at Mandalay on May 6th 2025, rejected takeoff A Myanmar National Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration XY-ALV performing flight UB-812 from Mandalay to Yangon (Myanmar) with 143 people on board, was accelerating for takeoff from Mandalay when the crew rejected takeoff at low speed due to some grinding noise from the landing gear. The aircraft subsequently attempted a second takeoff but needed to reject takeoff again. Emergency services responded and needed to extinguish a small brakes fire. A tyre was found burst. The passengers disembarked via stairs onto the runway. The aircraft returned to service about 20 hours later. https://avherald.com/h?article=5277b4bb&opt=0 Why The 737 MAX Has Been Such A Headache For Boeing Since it first flew in 1967, the Boeing 737 has been one of the greatest success stories in commercial aviation. With a small, narrow-body (a single aisle between the seats) plane with short- to medium-range, it was perfect for flights of just a few hours in length, which covers the majority of domestic routes. That led to thousands of these aircraft being delivered, making it the most popular plane in the world. In fact, at its peak, nearly a third of all flights were flown with a 737! Sadly, starting with the 2017 launch of the latest generation, the 737 MAX, it's all gone nose-down. Production and sales have plummeted, allowing rival Airbus to eclipse it with their A320 range. The company is also embroiled in legal troubles, and worst of all, there have been multiple mid-air disasters -- some of them fatal. What happened? The simplest explanation is the same one that plagues many companies: Boeing wanted to cut costs. Eventually, that mentality led to bad decisions, rushed designs, and slashed safety budgets. The results have been, well, terrible. Far from flying Boeing into a new era, the 737 MAX has become the manufacturer's biggest headache. The MAX's biggest innovation over earlier 737s was its improved engines, with better fuel efficiency and range. However, those engines were also physically larger, so large that, placed under a 737's wings, they would have scraped against the ground. Really, Boeing should have built an entirely new plane to attach them to, but that apparently would have been too expensive. So instead, Boeing decided to just keep using the same old 737 airframe but mount the engines forward of the wing rather than under. This design decision had one extremely important consequence -- it unbalanced the plane. Boeing devised a software solution for this, a system that would automatically make flight adjustments to correct for the imbalance. Tragically, in the span of just a few months in 2018 and 2019, two separate crashes were caused by this automated system fighting with the actual pilots and hundreds of people died. The entire 737 MAX fleet was grounded after this, but after some upgrades, the planes were recertified to fly. Since then, a whole host of other issues with lax safety standards have emerged. Famously, in January 2024, a panel blew off one in mid-flight -- the likely cause was a manufacturing error. Boeing Flies Into Legal Turbulence As part of regaining flight certification for the 737 MAX, Boeing and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reached an agreement whereby the planemaker would pay a $2.5 billion fine and set up a compliance and ethics program. While that's not pocket change, it was a settlement to avoid a potentially much steeper fine. Then, the powers that be at Boeing decided to cheap out on their own settlement. They never did set up a compliance and ethics program, which is the sort of shady business practice that might have been stopped by, say, a compliance and ethics program. So the DOJ came back, and this time, they got Boeing to actually plead guilty to criminal fraud. Somehow, the fine for becoming a corporate felon was actually smaller at only $487 million. Even that deal is now imperiled, however, since a conservative-leaning judge struck it down for including a DEI provision. Where The 737 MAX Goes From Here Even after all this, the 737 MAX has fresh headaches to inflict on its maker. Two new variants of the MAX, the shorter seven and the longer 10, still have yet to receive flight certification. Issues with the engines filling the cabin with smoke after a bird strike and with the anti-ice system overheating those same engines have yet to be resolved, putting production years behind schedule. As you might imagine, the current Boeing leadership is trying to solve this legally instead of technologically, by asking the FAA for exemptions to safety regulations. So far, they thankfully haven't gotten them. https://www.yahoo.com/autos/why-737-max-headache-boeing-202500092.html Why The Obvious Choice For A Boeing 757 Replacement Isn't So Obvious Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways The Boeing 757 has been a trusty stalwart of the commercial aviation industry since the 1980s. Where jumbo jets like the nearly gone Boeing 747 could seat huge numbers of passengers for long-haul flights (on two floors!), or the smaller Boeing 737 could comfortably whisk a few passengers over short ranges, the 757 was right in the middle. It was a midsize, medium-range aircraft, featuring a narrow-body design (only a single aisle between seats) and two engines. For flying around a continent, it was the premier choice for decades. Sadly, those decades have come to an end. The last 757 rolled out of the hangar in 2004, and while many are still in the air (sometimes as monster firefighting planes), they're getting pretty old. Airlines are already thinking about how and when to put the venerable plane out to pasture. This in turn raises the question: What's next? At first, the answer seems obvious. If you're looking for a midsize, medium-range, narrow-body, twinjet aircraft today, you're looking at the Airbus A321. While the airframe has been flying since the 1990s, the newest variant, the XLR, had its maiden commercial voyage just in November 2024. Something else happened that month, though, that has thrown everyone's plans into disarray: Donald Trump was re-elected. Suddenly, nothing is obvious. Airbus' Replacement For The 757 Is Flying Into Tariff Turbulence The Airbus A321XLR really is a fantastic piece of engineering, not just replacing the 757 but literally pushing farther. "XLR" stands for "Xtra Long Range," and with a flying distance of 5,400 miles, it very much lives up to that title for a plane of its size. The 757, by contrast, had a maximum range of just under 4,500 miles. Small wonder, then, that many airlines around the world are already making the transition. In America, however, the A321 and indeed all Airbus planes are flying into tariff turbulence. As of this writing, these European planes would be subject to huge cost increases if they ever hit American soil (exactly how much seems to be subject to Trump's whim on any given day). Since, as you might imagine, the planes themselves are an airline's biggest expenditure, that is a massive hit to its bottom line. Many U.S.-based airlines are instead choosing to defer deliveries, hoping to eventually win exemptions to the tariffs. That means that anyone hoping to switch from the 757 to the A321 is going to have to wait, and nobody knows for how long. If tariffs truly stick around for the long term, U.S.-based airlines will eventually have to consider other options. And in the commercial aviation industry, there's really only one other option. Boeing's Replacements For The 757 Aren't Ready Yet Boeing made the 757, so you might be wondering... couldn't Boeing just make a newer one? The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, Boeing has a couple of potential successors. The problem? None of them are ready yet. Internally, the Washington-based manufacturer's direct descendant for the 757 is the New Midsize Airplane (NMA), sometimes called the 797. It's actually designed to be a little bit larger than the 757 was, featuring two aisles between the seats, although still smaller than a wide-body jumbo jet (in industry parlance, the 797 is a middle-of-the-market plane). However, Boeing has put this project on pause, awaiting newer, better engines to be invented. Alternatively, the 737 MAX (specifically its longest-bodied variant, the MAX 10) might be a reasonable replacement for the 757. While its range isn't quite as good, it's also a single-aisle twinjet with a similar passenger capacity. It successfully flew its first test flight in 2021, which should have meant that it was more or less ready for delivery. Except, here we are in 2025, and those deliveries still have yet to materialize, without any hard date for when they will. But if tariffs that have already cost Boeing 40 sales to China last long enough and airlines' Airbus orders are deferred for long enough, it's possible the 737 MAX 10 could become a workable option before the A321XLR. https://www.yahoo.com/autos/why-obvious-choice-boeing-757-172500269.html Trump Loses His Cool Over Pushback to Qatar Jet Deal President Donald Trump told people criticizing his decision to accept a luxury jet from Qatar to pipe down Sunday in a late-night post on Truth Social. The issue united both Democrats and Republicans in outrage after ABC News broke the story that Trump planned to take the $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to use as his new Air Force One. But the president called those who questioned the ethical implications of such a massive gift “world class losers” in a scathing statement. “So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” Trump penned on Truth Social. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.” Qatar’s media attaché to the US, Ali Al-Ansari, said in a statement earlier on Sunday that the plane is technically being gifted from the country’s Ministry of Defense to the Pentagon. “The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made,” Al-Ansari said according to CNN. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News in a statement that “any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws.” “President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency,” she added. Democrats unanimously criticized the gift on Sunday, decrying it as blatant corruption. “This isn’t a good idea even if the plane was being donated to the U.S. government. But Trump GETS TO KEEP THE PLANE???” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote on X. “It’s simply a cash payment to Trump in exchange for favors. Just wildly illegal.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-loses-cool-over-pushback-030912852.html CALENDAR OF EVENTS · Sixth Edition of International Accident Investigation Forum, 21 to 23 May 2025, Singapore · Flight Safety Foundation - Aviation Safety Forum June 5-6, 2025 - Brussels . 2025 EASA-FAA International Aviation Safety Conference, 10 Jun 2025 to 12 Jun 2025, Cologne, Germany · The 9th Shanghai International Aerospace Technology and Equipment Exposition 2025; June 11 to 13, 2025 . South Texas Business Aviation Association June 20th at the Galaxy FBO at Conroe Airport, Texas. . Airborne Public Safety Association -APSCON / APSCON Unmanned 2025 in Phoenix, AZ | July 14-18, 2025 . 3rd annual Asia Pacific Summit for Aviation Safety (AP-SAS), July 15-17, 2025, Singapore, organized by Flight Safety Foundation and CAAS. . Asia Pacific Aviation Safety Seminar 2025; 10-11 September 2025; Manila, Philippines · ISASI ANNUAL SEMINAR 2025'September 29, 2025 – October 3, 2025, DENVER, COLORADO . Air Medical Transport Conference (AMTC™) - 2025 – October 27-29th (Omaha, Nebraska) . 29th annual Bombardier Safety Standdown, November 11-13, 2025; Wichita, Kansas · CHC Safety & Quality Summit, 11th – 13th November 2025, Vancouver, BC Canada Curt Lewis