“Is it okay if I take your hand?” » This Friday, January 5, shortly after 5 p.m., aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Christopher Hickman, 44, seated in row 8 of a Boeing 737 Max 9, received this plea from his neighbor. According to the story of Wall Street Journal, a few moments earlier, a loud bang resounded in the plane which connects Portland (Ore.) to Ontario, one of the Los Angeles airports. A “blockage” in the fuselage, which replaces a possible additional door on row 26, was literally sucked out. A child sees his t-shirt ripped off, a teddy bear is sucked in, two cell phones fly into the air, oxygen masks fall, the cockpit door opens suddenly.
Everyone thinks their last hour has come and sends messages to their loved ones. A passenger films the gaping hole in the plane as the pilot turns around for an emergency landing. It’s the miracle. The plane, in the ascent phase, was at an altitude of less than 5,000 meters and did not explode. All 171 passengers and six crew members were strapped to their seats. No people were seated in seats 26A and 26B. The aircraft landed in Portland at 5:27 p.m. without casualties.
Miracle, but also disaster for Boeing. This new major failure revives distrust in its 737 Max, after the double accidents of October 2018 (Lion Air in Indonesia, 189 deaths) and March 2019 (Ethiopian Airlines, 157 deaths) due to a system malfunctioning in-flight stabilization system. Is Boeing a reliable manufacturer? The company hoped in 2024 to return to the path of growth and serenity.
Brand new plane
Monday morning, there was distrust on Wall Street. The aircraft manufacturer’s shares lost nearly 7% on the stock market, while attention focused on the causes of the accident. The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has ordered the shutdown for inspection of 171 Boeing Max 9s, which are used mainly by United Airlines (79 aircraft) and Alaska Airlines (65 aircraft) in the United States. Both companies had to cancel hundreds of flights. The torn 28 kilogram piece was found in the garden of a Portland teacher, which will facilitate the investigation. On the other hand, the recording of the conversations in the cockpit was erased because it had not been saved – after two hours, the conversation was overwritten by the news.
Many questions arise. Marginally on Alaska Airlines. The plane concerned had seen one of its pressurization lights light up during three previous flights. It is impossible to know whether it was actually a pressurization problem or a failure of the alarm system. The company, which had decreed that the matter was “benign”, still had enough doubts to prohibit the aircraft from serving Hawaii over the Pacific. She had ordered additional investigations, but these had not been completed before Friday’s flight, raising questions about the timeliness of safety inspections.
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