BUSINESS BRIEFING / AIRLINES
Times Wire Services
U.S. airlines must inspect 135 Boeing Co. 737 planes for fuselage cracks to prevent holes from forming, as one did on a Southwest Airlines Co. flight in July, the Federal Aviation Administration said in an order to be published in the Federal Register today.
Each plane must be inspected before it has flown 35,000 flights -- or within 500 flights after the FAA issues its order.
On a Southwest flight July 13, a foot-wide hole formed near the top of the fuselage, causing the jet to lose pressure and oxygen masks to deploy. The plane made an emergency landing. No one was hurt.
