FAA IDLES SOME 737 JETS FOR SAFETY CHECKS
Action comes after Alaska Airlines flight’s emergency landing when door blew out.
By Ruben Vives and Jeremy Childs
The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airlines to temporarily ground some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets after an Alaska Airlines flight bound for Southern California was forced to make an emergency landing when a hole blew open in the side of the aircraft shortly after takeoff Friday night.
The move came hours after a terrifying f light in which passengers heard a loud booming sound, then watched as a door and part of a wall blew off. No passengers were hurt; the seat closest to the rupture was vacant, witnesses said.
The cause remains unclear.
“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 Max 9 planes before they can return to flight,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said. “Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.”
The FAA’s airworthiness directive will affect approximately 171 airplanes worldwide, including 65 Alaska Airlines planes, as the investigation continues, officials said. The directive, which disrupted hundreds of flights, came hours after the airline had already ordered its planes grounded.
United Airlines temporarily suspended service on nine of the 79 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes in its fleet, resulting in the cancellation of about 60 flights, the airline said Saturday. An additional 33 of United’s 737 Max 9 aircraft have already undergone the required FAA inspection.
Operators will be required to inspect aircraft before further flights, according to the FAA directive. The required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 left Portland International Airport in Oregon around 5 p.m. headed toward Ontario, with 171 passengers and six crew members on board, according to the airline.
While the plane was gaining altitude, a door and part of a wall blew out, according to social media reports. Alaska Airlines described the event as “an incident” and said the plane turned around and safely landed back in Portland.
FlightAware, a public airplane tracker, listed the total flight length as 35 minutes. The flight was at an altitude of 16,000 feet and traveling 440 mph when it was forced to turn around, according to the tracker.
A video posted to TikTok by a passenger on the flight showed a panel on the left side of the plane missing, with insulation foam visible. Oxygen masks were deployed from the ceiling. Passengers said they first heard a loud boom.
“The oxygen masks dropped down, and I look to my left to hear and see wind blasting, with a piece of the wall gone,” Elizabeth Le told KTLA-TV Channel 5. “There was no one in the window seat, but a mom and her teenage son were sitting [on] the aisle.”
“I looked up and saw that the son’s shirt was completely off and his skin was very red,” Le told the station.
Another passenger said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “I was right across from it, it was scary as hell.”
A TikTok user who was on the flight shared her experience, saying she was asleep when the plane suddenly dropped in altitude, prompting the oxygen masks to drop down. She said she heard passengers screaming.
“It was just so scary, no one knew what was happening,” she said.
Sara Nelson, president of the Assn. of Flight Attendants, which represents 50,000 members, praised the crew working Alaska Flight 1282 and said one flight attendant suffered minor injuries after an “explosive decompression at a window/ plugged door.”
“Last night’s incident could have been worse, but flight attendants and pilots of Alaska 1282 ensured all passengers and crew arrived safely back on the ground,” Nelson said. She said the union supported the temporary grounding of the Boeing Max 9 aircraft fleet.
“This is a critical move to ensure the safety of all crew and passengers, as well as confidence in aviation safety,” she said. “Lives must come first always.”
Boeing struggled with problems with its 737 Max 8 series. The Max 8 was grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 after 346 people died in two similar crashes that included Lion Air Flight 610 on Oct. 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019.
The crashes were caused, investigators determined, by changes Boeing made that distinguish the 737 Max 8 from its predecessors.
To handle a longer fuselage that could fit more passengers, Boeing put larger, stronger engines on the plane. Those engines had to be moved forward on the wings because they didn’t fit in the same places as the old, smaller engines. But the new placement could cause the plane to pitch up. To counteract that, Boeing added software called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System.
Regulators determined that a faulty sensor in the planes triggered the software system to nosedive under certain conditions, defying pilots’ efforts to regain control of the plane.
After 20 months of investigations, upgrades and tests, regulators cleared the plane to f ly passengers again in 2021.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the Alaska Airlines incident.
Robert Ditchey, an aviation expert and former executive at numerous airlines, said the situation with Alaska Flight 1282 could have been a lot worse, had the aircraft been traveling at a higher altitude.
“The pressure differential between outside and inside is much higher when you’re at a cruising altitude, and they were halfway up,” Ditchey said. “At 30,000 feet, the partial pressure of oxygen is so low that you only have about a minute to survive at that altitude, so not only could people have been blown out of the airplane but some people might have had some problems with the low oxygen levels.”
Ditchey suspects that the failure of the plug door is not related to metal fatigue, because the plane was new. FAA records show that the aircraft entered commercial service two months ago.
Ditchey said federal investigators will place special attention on the plug door to determine what caused it to fail. He said they’ll probably look at what held the door in place and if there were any issues related to missing bolts, improperly sized bolts or over-torqued bolts.
Rep. Norma Torres (DPomona), who represents Ontario International Airport (ONT) in the House of Representatives and serves on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, sent a letter to Whitaker demanding how it proposes to keep travelers safe.
“This incident endangered the lives of 177 souls on board Alaska Airlines flight 1282 and the thousands of others who may be in harm’s way on similar planes or by whose travel plans were disrupted by the precautionary groundings that Alaska Airlines has taken,” Torres wrote in her letter.
“America has long held the record of having the safest airspace and flight protocols in the world. That said, Boeing’s track record, along with the FAA’s safety oversight in recent years, has raised serious, warranted concerns for the flying public.” the letter continued.
In her letter, Torres demanded answers to a list of questions such as what caused the paneling to come off and how widespread the issue was.
She also noted that the FAA last month called for additional inspections of the 737 Max planes after reports of a possible loose bolt in the rudder control system and asked what the follow-up reports found.
Alaska Airlines Chief Executive Ben Minicucci said in a statement that its fleet of 65 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft would be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections.