Torso part broken out
US aviation authority investigates Boeing after near-miss
January 12, 2024, 2:37 a.m
On a flight from Portland to Ontario, a large cabin part breaks out of the plane shortly after takeoff. The Boeing 737 MAX 9 has to make an emergency landing. Defects have been identified in other aircraft of this type. The aviation authority is now investigating whether the company has neglected its obligations.
After the emergency landing of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 due to a lost part of the cabin wall, the US aviation regulator FAA has initiated a comprehensive investigation into the company. “This incident should never have happened and must not happen again,” the FAA said. According to the information, the investigation relates to quality assurance at the aircraft manufacturer. It will be checked whether Boeing’s designs correspond to the approved templates. The circumstances indicated that the aircraft manufacturer may have neglected its production, inspection and testing obligations, it said in a published letter to Boeing. The company was given ten working days to respond.
After the FAA letter, the aircraft manufacturer confirmed that it would work transparently with the aviation authority and the accident investigation agency NTSB. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun had previously admitted his company’s “mistakes” in response to the emergency landing. He assured “complete transparency” in dealing with the incident in cooperation with the authorities. After the incident, the US authorities had already ordered that around 170 737 MAX 9 aircraft were temporarily no longer allowed to take off.
Part of the cabin wall of Alaska Airlines’ 737 MAX 9 flew out on Friday last week shortly after takeoff from Portland in the northwestern US state of Oregon. The plane then turned around and made an emergency landing in Portland around 20 minutes later. No one was seriously injured in the incident. In the incident, around 170 passengers escaped with horror, even though there was a hole in the fuselage. At the same time, experts pointed out that, by a lucky coincidence, the two seats directly next to the part of the fuselage that had broken out remained empty.
The FAA ordered immediate inspections for around 170 aircraft with the same configuration after the emergency landing. The investigation now ordered by the aviation authority is of a more comprehensive nature. The agency said it is examining “whether Boeing failed to ensure that its completed projects conform to approved construction methods” and meet the “high safety standards” set by the FAA.
Boeing is under pressure again
In parallel with the FAA, the incident is also being investigated by the NTSB. This investigation has been ongoing since Saturday. According to the NTSB, the cover plate of an unused emergency exit opened and came loose during the flight. The airlines with the largest 737 MAX 9 fleets, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, announced that they had discovered poorly installed components in several aircraft during checks after the emergency landing.
The Boeing 737 MAX had caused massive problems for Boeing in recent years. After two plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia with a total of 346 deaths, a global ban on flights of this type was imposed in March 2019, which was only lifted at the end of 2020 after technical revisions.