WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The US civil aviation authority, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), announced on Sunday the grounding of 171 Boeing MAX 9 planes for inspection, after the loss of a fuselage part on board an Alaska Airlines aircraft, forced to make an emergency landing on Friday.
“We have grounded the affected aircraft, and they will remain grounded until the FAA is satisfied that they are safe,” the FAA said Sunday.
The civil aviation decision is much smaller in scale than the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for twenty months, all over the world, after two fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019 linked to a cockpit software problem.
However, it constitutes a new blow for the American aircraft manufacturer, heavily in debt, which is striving to overcome several successive crises linked to security and the Covid pandemic.
The fuselage piece flew off as the Alaska Airlines ALK.N plane took off from the Portland, Oregon, airport to Ontario, California, leaving a rectangular hole in the cabin and forcing the crew to turn back.
The aircraft, which had only been in service for eight weeks, landed without damage with its 171 passengers and six crew members on board.
(David Shepardson; French version Elizabeth Pineau)
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