The American airline Alaska Airlines grounded its Boeing 737 MAX-9 aircraft after the spectacular flight of a window which caused the emergency landing of one of its aircraft with 177 people on board in the United States on Friday evening. -United. “After the event that occurred this evening on Flight 1282, we have decided as a precautionary measure to temporarily ground our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” announced Alaska Airlines boss Ben Minicucci in a press release. “Each device will only be returned to service after the completion of comprehensive maintenance and safety inspections,” he added, estimating that this would take a few days.
The Federal Civil Aviation Agency (FAA) explained on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that Flight 1282 took off from Portland International Airport in Oregon, in the northwest, on Friday around 5:00 p.m. local time, or 01:00 GMT Saturday, before returning to land safely after the crew reported a “pressurization problem”.
An Alaska Airlines flight made an emergency landing Friday night after a portion of the aircraft blew out mid-air. Video obtained by CBS News appeared to show one of the passenger window panels had been blown out. https://t.co/wKIOLENg3rpic.twitter.com/M00hT7HaPx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 6, 2024
Images posted on social media showed the window blown out, with oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling of the aircraft. A passenger on the flight, Kyle Rinker, explained to American television CNN that the window had blown off just after takeoff.
Rare incident
“It was really brutal. Barely at altitude, the front of the window just came off and I only noticed it when the oxygen masks came down,” he said. Another passenger, Vi Nguyen, told the American daily The New York Times that she had been awakened by a loud noise during the flight. “I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the oxygen mask right in front of me,” she explained, “and I looked to the left and the side panel was gone. “. “The first thing that came to my mind was ‘I’m going to die,'” she added.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the FAA and Alaska Airlines each said they were investigating the incident. “The aircraft returned to land safely at Portland International Airport with all 171 passengers and six crew members,” according to a statement from the airline. “Even though this type of incident is rare, our flight crew were trained and prepared to safely handle this situation,” the statement added.
According to the specialist site FlightAware, the Boeing 737 MAX-9 took off precisely at 5:07 p.m. (local time), heading towards Ontario, California before returning to the airport around twenty minutes later. The aircraft was certified in October, according to the FAA registry available online.
The manufacturer of the device, the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing, wrote on X that it was gathering more information and that a technical team was available to investigators. Ben Minicucci said in his statement that Alaska Airlines “is working with Boeing and regulators to understand what happened.”
Boeing has experienced serious accidents and technical difficulties with its 737 MAX in recent years. In December, the manufacturer informed airlines that MAX aircraft needed to be inspected for loose parts in the rudder control system, following the discovery by an international operator of a bolt without a nut during a routine inspection.
The aircraft manufacturer then spotted a nut “which was not properly tightened” on an aircraft not yet delivered. The 737 MAX was grounded for many months around the world after two air disasters involving the aircraft in October 2018 and March 2019, which left 346 dead.
The FAA had only authorized return to service after changes to the flight control system. More recently, Boeing had to slow down deliveries due to problems with the fuselage, particularly with the aircraft’s rear bulkhead. At the end of December, Boeing had delivered a total of more than 1,370 copies of the 737 MAX and its order book currently contains more than 4,000.