US grounds some Boeing 737 jets

MID-AIR: DOOR PANEL BLOWS OUT AFTER TAKEOFF

Aeromexico, Panama and Türkiye also pull plug on MAX planes.

The US air safety regulator said on Saturday that it was grounding some Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets pending inspections, a day after a panel blew out of one of the planes over the western state of Oregon.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) “is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” it said.

The agency said about 171 aircraft worldwide would be affected with each inspection taking four to eight hours.

Alaska and United Airlines fly the largest number of MAX 9 planes, while Icelandair and Turkish Airlines have smaller fleets of the aircraft.

Boeing has so far delivered about 218 737 MAX 9 planes worldwide, said the company.

Alaska Airlines grounded all 65 of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes on Friday after a flight carrying 171 passengers and six crew was forced to make an emergency landing, with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) saying a sealed-over door panel had come off mid-flight.

The plane had left Portland International Airport and was still gaining altitude when the cabin crew reported a “pressurisation issue,” said the FAA. It quickly returned to Portland and there were no major injuries.

Images on social media showed a side panel of the plane blown out with emergency oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.

“Following tonight’s event, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” said the airline.

“Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections,” it added.

The NTSB said no one was sitting in the two places nearest the panel, but a newspaper report quoted passengers as saying a boy in the row had his shirt ripped off by the sudden decompression.

Aviation specialist John Ostrower said the affected panel was a “mid-aft door,” which Boeing deactivates for some carriers, before delivering the new planes.

Aeromexico said it was grounding all of its 737 MAX 9 planes while inspections are carried out, and Turkish Airlines announced yesterday it would also suspend flights of its nine MAX 9 planes.

The Panamanian carrier Copa Airlines said it was grounding 21 of its 737 MAX 9s. –