UNITED States aircraft manufacturer Boeing said yesterday it was investigating two serious accidents involving its new 747-400 aircraft in the past seven weeks.
On September 13, an Air France 747-400 jet overran the runway at Faaa airport in Tahiti with 270 people on board.
It landed in a lagoon, and although no one was seriously injured, the airport was closed for a day.
''That was the first serious incident involving a 747-400 since we introduced the aircraft in 1989, and we have a team out there right now investigating what happened,'' said Chris Villiers, spokesman for Boeing at the company headquarters in Seattle.
''Since 1989 there have been no fatal accidents, or any accidents that have resulted in the loss of the airplane, for any of our aircraft,'' Mr Villiers said.
''To put it in perspective, our 747 fleet has flown about 2.8 billion kilometres since 1970, carrying about 1.4 billion passengers; in that time there have been 14 or 15 major accidents worldwide. Our safety record has been exemplary,'' he said.
He did not believe the Tahiti and Kai Tak accidents were connected with any aircraft malfunction ''but, of course, we shall be making a full inquiry into what happened on both occasions''.