Passengers on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 are suing Boeing Co., claiming a door-like panel on the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane came off during the flight, causing the plane to rapidly depressurize, attorneys said in a news release.
The complaint, filed Thursday in Seattle court, names six passengers and one of their family members as plaintiffs. The incident resulted in physical injuries such as a concussion, bruises, difficulty breathing and bleeding in the ear, as well as psychological trauma. He also claims that many of the oxygen masks on the plane did not appear to be working. Boeing declined to comment.
“This nightmarish experience has caused financial, physical, and ongoing emotional repercussions, leaving no one with much deserved support,” Daniel Lawrence, an attorney at Strittmeter Kessler Koehler Moore, said in a statement. However, it has had a profound impact on our customers.” He cited “Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun’s candid admission that this horrific event was caused by Boeing’s ‘mistake'” as the impetus for the proposed class action. “We’re going to own up to our mistakes and work on this No. 1,” Calhoun told employees during a company meeting Tuesday, The Washington Post reported.
The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded some Boeing 737 Max 9 planes during an investigation following the Jan. 5 crash on a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California. This week, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines announced that they had discovered loose hardware in the same section of similar planes in their fleets. “The timing of the Boeing 737-9 Max’s return to service is determined by the safety of the aircraft’s passengers, not its speed,” the FAA said.