Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Carrying Rapper Tech N9ne Returns To Kansas Amid Suspected Fuel Leak
The flight landed safely and the 737 remains on the ground. Alaska Airlines flight from Kansas City, MO, to Seattle was forced to divert due to a suspected fuel leak, forcing the flight to turn around half an hour into the flight due to the suspected leak. The flight was carrying rapper Tech 9Nine, who was born in Kansas City and was among the passengers on board. The plane landed safely back in Kansas city without any injuries. The Boeing 737-900, registered as N302AS, was built in June 2000 and is now approaching 24 years old and has over 67,000 flight hours and 28,000 flights cycles. The aircraft will undergo rigorous inspection and maintenance protocol before it is returned to service.
Published : 10 months ago by Luke Bodell in Entertainment Travel
An Alaska Airlines flight from Kansas City, MO, to Seattle was forced to turn around approximately half an hour in due to a suspected fuel leak. Rapper and Kansas City native Tech 9Nine was onboard the flight, which landed safely back in Kansas City.
On June 7th, Alaska Airlines Flight 291 departed Kansas City (MCI) at 15:19 local time en route to Seattle-Tacoma (SEA). However, as per a report from KMBC, early into the flight, pilots received an indication of a fuel leak. In response, they shut down the aircraft's No.1 engine and turned the plane around to land back in Kansas City.
Data from Flightradar24 shows the aircraft began to turn around just over 30 minutes into the journey before landing at MCI just after 16:30, with no injuries reported. Readers may be familiar with rapper Tech N9ine, who was born in Kansas City, Missouri and was on the flight. The rapper posted to his Facebook account that, while in the middle of listening to some new music, a flight attendant informed him of a potential fuel leak.
Alaska Airlines confirmed that pilots followed procedure and shut down one of the engines before landing back in Kansas City. In a statement, the airline said,
The aircraft involved in the incident is a Boeing 737-900, registered as N302AS, built in June 2000 and approaching 24 years old. The jet is powered by two CFM56 engines and has accumulated over 67,000 flight hours and 28,000 flight cycles as of February 2024, as per data from ch-aviation.
The narrowbody can seat up to 178 passengers in two cabin classes, with 162 in economy and 16 in business class. Interestingly, the airframe was initially used by Boeing as a testbed until it was delivered to AS in April 2003, around two and a half years after its first flight. It also spent over a year in storage during the COVID pandemic before returning to service in the summer of 2021.
Flightradar24 data shows that the aircraft remains on the ground in Kansas City, which, at the time of publication, is around 20 hours after the incident and counting. Fuel leaks are a serious safety concern, so the aircraft will undergo a rigorous inspection and maintenance protocol before it is returned to service.
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Topics: Aviation, Airlines