New York, May 9, 2024 (AFP) - Boeing has been in the headlines lately following a series of problems with its aircraft, with the most recent incidents in Turkey and Senegal.

The episodes, which follow a near-disastrous panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines jet in January, point to production and maintenance issues, say experts, who don't see an obvious pattern behind the myriad incidents.

- Rash of incidents -

The US plane maker has been under scrutiny since January 5, when a Boeing 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines made an emergency landing after a fuselage panel blew out, somehow avoiding serious injuries in an incident that safety officials say could have been catastrophic.

United Airlines has experienced recent issues on various flights involving Boeing planes, as has Southwest Airlines, which in early April had an engine fire on one flight.

On Thursday, a Boeing 737-300 skidded off a runway in Senegal, resulting in 11 injuries, including four that were serious.

That followed a Wednesday incident in Istanbul in which a Boeing 767 cargo plane belonging to FedEx landed on its nose after its front landing gear failed to deploy.

Such a confluence of incidents is "pretty rare" within air travel, said aviation expert Bertrand Vilmer, who described the myriad "abnormal" problems as reflecting "an alignment of unfavorable planets."

- Alternative causes -

Aviation experts usually look to three possible explanations for problems.

There can be a design defect, as with the two fatal crashes on 737 MAX jets in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia that involved a flaw in a flight stabilizing system.

Aviation watchers have pointed to a production defect as the likely source of the Alaska Airlines incident, which entailed a Boeing 737 MAX 9 that had only been delivered in October.

A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board published in February found that four bolts meant to help secure the panel that blew off were missing.

A third possible cause would be insufficient maintenance.

While design and production are the responsibility of the plane maker, the airline is in charge of keeping up the plane once it receives it.

"Once the aircraft is delivered, Boeing has nothing to do with it anymore" in relation to maintenance, said Richard Aboulafia of AeroDynamic Advisory.

- Safest form of transport? -

Notwithstanding the recent spate of incidents, aviation experts point to a strong safety record overall.

"We haven't had a single casualty in the entire US airline industry in way over a decade, despite millions of people flown," said Aboulafia. "That's incredible."

Aboulafia calls modern flying "the safest form of transport ever created by people," noting that "everyday, hundreds of people get killed on the roads."

Boeing's rival, Airbus, has not been completely spared of difficulty. Hundreds of planes produced by the European company are being taken out of service to check for microscopic "contamination" of metals in engines made by Pratt & Whitney.

Airbus also had a public dispute with Qatar Airways involving the degradation of exterior plane surfaces.

But there have been fewer such issues at Airbus and not one incident that drew a comparable level of attention as Alaska Airlines, experts said.

"Every incident that has occurred on Boeing airplanes this year has made headlines, suggesting that Boeing airplanes are unsafe," said a note from equity research firm Bernstein.

"The reality is that the number of incidents in the US on Airbus and Boeing airplanes so far this year is proportional to the number of airplanes in the fleets of US carriers."

The US commercial fleet currently has about 4,800 planes, with about 60 percent Boeing planes, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm.

Speaking at the FT's Future of the Car conference, Shu said that BYD will bring a low-cost electric vehicle based on its Chinese Seagull model to Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the reappointment on Friday (9 May) of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, a technocrat who has helped him through the war in Ukraine and the economic challenges wrought by Western sanctions over Moscow's invasion.

Israeli forces bombarded areas of Rafah on Thursday (9 May), Palestinian residents said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed US President Joe Biden's threat to withhold weapons from Israel if it assaults the southern Gaza city.

Following the EU and NATO condemning Russian cyber espionage group APT28 last week, we talked to independent cyber policy expert Pavlina Pavlova about APT28’s methods.

Ukraine's parliament voted on Thursday (9 May) to sack the deputy prime minister for infrastructure and the farm minister, removing two senior officials who have held key portfolios for the wartime economy.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about EPP President Manfred Weber criticising Sanchez for taking a five day break to reflect on his leadership, Bulgaria's president greeting participants in a banned pro-Russian march, and so much more.

Ukraine's parliament voted on Thursday (9 May) to crack down on draft dodgers, as the country grapples with a serious shortage of soldiers available to fight more than two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

In a recent interview with The Banker magazine, President of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Odile Renaud-Basso, stated “We must engage with the fossil fuel industry to meet the methane pledge”. While reducing methane emissions from the energy sector is undoubtedly an important part of keeping global temperature rise within the 1.5°C goal, ending methane emissions from this sector should be the urgent focus.

With some retailers offering less while keeping prices the same, a phenomenon now widely referred to as "shrinkflation", Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has called on lawmakers to adopt measures to combat the trend, drawing inspiration from the French model.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, emerging as one of the key future players in Bulgarian party politics, personally attended the banned pro-Russian "Immortal Regiment" march in Sofia on Thursday.

Portugal is one the most pro-EU countries, mainly supporting Ukraine's accession to the EU bloc and advocating more decisions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the European Policy Barometer reads.

European People's Party (EPP) President Manfred Weber on Thursday criticised Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) for deciding to take five days to consider whether to resign or stay in office, saying "Spain needs a statesman, not a showman".

Meloni’s inclusion allowance will increase the incidence of both absolute and child poverty, concludes a European Commission analysis - deemed as "partial" by the Italian government - which also highlights Italy's significant gap with the EU on various employment indicators, including long-term employment, wage growth, and the poverty rate of those in work.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen spoke out against the “Europeanisation” of France’s nuclear firepower on Thursday, claiming that no EU commissioner would ever have the democratic legitimacy to decide on nuclear strikes.

British opposition leader Keir Starmer will say on Friday (10 May) a Labour government would hire hundreds of enforcement officials and use counter-terrorism powers to target people-smuggling gangs to stop asylum seekers arriving in England on small boats.

The proportion of European firms that rank China as a top investment destination has hit a record low, a European business lobby group said on Friday (10 May), warning that it could take years to restore confidence in the world's No.2 economy.

China’s President Xi Jinping has been received in Serbia and Hungary as the messiah. Only during communism Belgrade and Budapest were so decorated with flags and posters and so many people were bussed to greet the high visitor.

Despite being at the head of a fossil fuel empire at a time the union is traversing a green transition, Daniel Kretinsky has managed to stay off the radar. That was until the Czech billionaire started acquiring media through Europe.

German EU lawmaker Peter Liese is already eyeing the next revamp of the EU’s emissions trading scheme, wants a CO2 Central Bank and is campaigning for his party to stay the course on EU climate targets, he told Euractiv in an interview.