The aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, according to a spokesperson for Tampa International Airport.
Two people were injured when a Southwest Airlines flight encountered severe turbulence on Wednesday morning.
The aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, according to a spokesperson for Tampa International Airport.
“The Captain declared an emergency, a requirement to deviate from a filed flight plan, and also requested that paramedics be available when the aircraft arrived to assess any potential injury,” the statement said.
A passenger and a flight attendant were transported to a Tampa area medical facility, the airline added.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, a spokesperson told CNN.
According to CNN Weather, storms that brought severe weather from the Ohio Valley to the Deep South on Tuesday were draped over the Gulf of Mexico this morning, causing strong thunderstorms in the area.
In March, it was reported that Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun would leave the beleaguered company at the end of the year amid a major management shakeup.
Calhoun said he would leave by 2024 ending.
Boeing’s chairman and the head of the commercial airplane unit are also leaving.
According to CNN, Boeing’s chairman, Larry Kellner, will not stand for re-election as a board director. The board had elected former Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf to succeed him.
The company also announced that Stan Deal, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, would retire. Stephanie Pope, Boeing’s chief operating officer since January, took his place effective immediately.
Boeing has been buffeted by more than five years of problems with its aeroplanes, including two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, and most recently a door plug that blew out of the side of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max in January, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane.
The problems have led to multiple groundings for safety issues and more than $31 billion in cumulative losses.
In a letter to Boeing employees Monday, Calhoun called the Alaska Airlines incident “a watershed moment for Boeing.”
“The eyes of the world are on us,” he said in announcing his departure plans. “We are going to fix what isn’t working, and we are going to get our company back on the track towards recovery and stability.”
The decision to leave was “100%” his choice, Calhoun said in an interview on CNBC in March.
But it came in the face of widespread criticism of the company by CEOs of many of the world’s major airlines Boeing depends upon to buy its planes.
As to why Calhoun decided to stay on through the end of the year rather than leave immediately, he told CNBC: “We have another mountain to climb. Let’s not avoid what happened with Alaska Air. Let’s not avoid the call for action. Let’s not avoid the changes that we need to make in our factories.”
“We will get through that,” he said. “I’ve committed myself to the board to do exactly that.”