Less than a day after one of Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 Max 9 planes lost part of its fuselage, the Federal Aviation Administration announced on Saturday that U.S. airlines will undergo inspections. ordered the suspension of some Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft. The order affects approximately 171 aircraft.
“Safety will continue to be the driving force in our decision-making,” Mike Whitaker, the agency’s administrator, said in a statement. The FAA is working with the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation into the Alaska Airlines flight.
United Airlines operates 79 Max 9s, more than any other airline, according to aviation data provider Cirium. Alaska has 65 aircraft. Alaska announced early Saturday that some Max 9s would return to service after completing inspections of about a quarter of its fleet, reporting “no findings of concern.”
The FAA says it will take four to eight hours per aircraft to complete the necessary inspections.
Alaska grounded its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes on Friday after one of its planes made an emergency landing at Oregon’s Portland International Airport due to an air pressure problem. Passengers said part of the plane was blown off. plane.
The airline announced that Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 made a safe emergency landing at Portland Airport shortly after taking off from Ontario, California, with 171 passengers and six crew members on board. Said The airline announced it would ground all 65 of its Max 9 aircraft until each aircraft could be inspected. These planes make up about one-fifth of the aircraft fleet.That’s what I said statement He said the tests are expected to be completed within the next few days.
In a statement Saturday, Sarah Nelson, president of the Flight Attendants Association, the union representing flight attendants at Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and other airlines, welcomed the FAA-required testing.
“This is an important measure to ensure the safety of all crew and passengers and to ensure confidence in the safety of aviation,” she said. “Life must always come first.”
Boeing’s Max aircraft have a troubled history. The Max was grounded around the world after two Max 8 jet crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed hundreds of people within months.
Passengers on Friday’s flight said they had a disturbing experience during the 15 minutes or so it took for the plane to return to the airport. As yellow oxygen masks hung above their heads, a strong wind blew through the gaping hole, revealing the night sky and city lights below.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the crew reported a “pressurization issue” before the emergency landing.Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant Association Said The decompression was “explosive” and one attendant suffered minor injuries, the statement said.
Passenger Vi Nguyen, of Portland, said she was woken up by a loud noise during the flight. That’s when she noticed a large hole in the side of the plane.
“When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is an oxygen mask in front of me,” said Nguyen, 22. “And I looked to my left and the wall on the side of the plane was gone.”
“My first thought was, ‘I’m going to die,'” she added.
A friend, Elizabeth Lu, 20, said she also heard a “very loud pop”. She said she looked up and saw a large hole in the wall of the plane about two or three rows away.
Lee said no one was sitting in the window seat next to the missing plane, but a teenage boy and his mother were seated in the center and aisle seats. After a few minutes, she said, a flight attendant helped her move to the other side of the plane. She added that the boy appeared to have taken off his shirt and his skin was red and irritated.
“It was scary, to be honest,” she said. She said: “She almost broke down in tears, but then she realized she needed to stay calm.”
She said there were announcements over the speaker system, but the wind blowing through the plane was so loud that she couldn’t hear anything. After the plane landed, paramedics came on board and asked if anyone was injured. A man sitting in the row directly behind the hole said his leg hurt.
Mr Lee said the passengers were not given an explanation of what happened. In a video she shot of the plane, passengers could be heard clapping after landing. “Oh my god,” someone says.
After landing, Lee said he and a friend would board another flight to Ontario later that night.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed for Ontario International Airport at 5:07 p.m., then diverted and returned to Portland six minutes later, the statement said. flight aware, a flight tracking website. It reached a maximum altitude of about 16,000 feet and recorded speeds of more than 440 miles per hour before landing in Portland at 5:27 p.m.
The cause of the midair problem was unknown as of early Saturday morning. Keith Tonkin, managing director of Aviation Projects, an aviation consulting firm in Brisbane, Australia, said excessive pressure differences between the cabin and the exterior may have caused the wall to collapse.
Tonkin added that the passengers were likely able to breathe normally even when the plane was at its highest altitude.
The plane was brand new, having only been certified in November, the paper said. FAA Registry of aircraft. It began commercial operations that month and has logged 145 flights since then, according to the company. flight radar 24another flight tracking site.
Representatives from Alaska Airlines, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board said they were investigating what happened.
Boeing said in a statement that it was “aware of the accident on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282,” adding that it was “working to gather further information and in contact with our airline customers.”
As of noon Saturday, Alaska Airlines had canceled about 100 flights, or 13% of its scheduled flights that day, according to aviation tracking website FlightAware. Dozens more flights were delayed.
In 2018, Lion Air Flight 610, a 737 Max 8, crashed into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board. Less than five months later, in 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after departing from Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.
The Max plane was grounded after the second crash. Boeing made changes to the plane, including the flight control system behind the crash, and the FAA cleared the plane to fly again in late 2020. In 2021, the company agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Department of Justice, resolving criminal charges. Boeing conspired to defraud government agencies.
In December, Boeing asked airlines to inspect all 737 Max planes for loose bolts in the rudder control system after an international airline discovered a bolt with a missing nut during routine maintenance. Alaska Airlines said at the time that inspections of its fleet were expected to be completed in the first half of January.
Max planes are widely used. Of the approximately 2.9 million flights scheduled worldwide in January, 4.3% will be conducted using Max 8 aircraft and 0.7% will use Max 9 aircraft.
The Max is the most popular aircraft in Boeing’s history, accounting for one-fifth of all orders since 1955, according to company data.
mark walker Contributed to the report.