United Airlines flight UA-888 had to return and make an emergency landing in San Francisco, California, on April 25th.
The Boeing 747-400 plane took off for Beijing, China, but had to turn back after it lost the reduced vertical separation minima (RVSM) maintenance capability.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Boom Technology, a Denver, Colorado, based startup, wants to build a supersonic airplane that will be able to fly at 1,451 miles per hour, i.e. 2.6 times faster than any of the current airliners.
The company says its 40-seater aircrafts, at their cruising altitude of 60,000 feet, will reduce the time to fly from New York to London by half. So for a roundtrip price of $5,000, the travelers will be able to cover this distance in only 3.4 hours. Boom founder Blake Scholl said, “Imagine departing from New York at 6 a.m., and landing at Heathrow by 2:30 p.m. London time… You’ll be able to make afternoon meetings, you can stay until 9:30 p.m., have a full productive day, and and back in New York at 8 p.m. [local time] so you can tuck your kids into bed.”