Boeing 737 MAX 9 and Alaska Airlines: What to know

The emergency landing of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 on Friday in Portland, Oregon, led to the Federal Aviation Administration ordering some U.S. airlines to stop flying some Max 9 planes until they are inspected. The order affects about 171 planes owned by Alaska, United and other airlines. This incident also raised troubling new questions about the safety of the design of the workhorse aircraft, which has been plagued by years of problems and multiple fatal accidents.

No one was seriously injured in Friday's accident. The plane returned to Portland Airport shortly after part of the fuselage broke apart in midair, leaving a door-sized hole in the side of the plane.

Within hours of the episode, Alaska Airlines He said Boeing will park all 65 737 Max 9 aircraft in its fleet so mechanics can carefully inspect each plane. Later on Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding of some other airline fleets. United Airlines, which has 79 Max 9 aircraft, was the hardest hit.

Late Saturday, Jennifer Homendy, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, the body responsible for investigating plane crashes, said a plug in one of the non-essential emergency doors on the plane broke 10 minutes later from the airport while the plane was on standby. At an altitude of about 16,000 feet.

Ms. Homendy said investigators will compare the plug on the second emergency door, at the other end of the corridor, with the one that exploded in the hope of determining what went wrong. She added that investigators will also look at things like the pressure system and the plane's maintenance records.

Although the specific problem that led to Friday's scare appears to be unique, Boeing's 737 Max has perhaps the most troubling history of any modern jetliner currently in service.

As of Sunday evening, Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration were still working on drafting a letter to airlines with instructions on how to inspect planes, according to a person familiar with the process.

What happened on Friday?

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, carrying 171 passengers and six crew members bound for Ontario, California, made an emergency landing at Portland Airport on Friday evening, 20 minutes after takeoff.

Passengers on the plane reported hearing a loud thump before noticing that part of the plane's fuselage had opened up in midair.

In the minutes before the emergency landing, as oxygen masks hung from the ceiling and the wind howled through the gaping hole in the wall, passengers were unable to hear urgent announcements made over the public address system.

The plane involved in Friday's accident was almost new by commercial airline standards. It was recorded for the first time last November, and only 145 flights were recorded.

What is the history of the 737 Max?

Two Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes killed a total of 346 people in less than five months in 2018 and 2019. Both crashes were later linked to a malfunctioning system that overrides the pilot's commands.

Those incidents led to the global grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, leaving hundreds of planes parked on airport tarmac around the world for nearly two years while engineers worked to identify and resolve the problem so regulators could re-certify the planes.

The first incident occurred in October 2018, when a plane carrying 189 people from Jakarta, Indonesia, fell into the Java Sea just minutes after take-off. Four months later, another 737 MAX, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, crashed just after take-off en route to Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board, including the eight crew members.

Days later, President Donald J. Trump announced that U.S. regulators would temporarily halt all flights of the Boeing 737 MAX while investigators and Boeing sought to determine how a software system that was supposed to make the plane safer played a role in the disasters. .

US regulators were among the last to halt this model, but they did so after mounting pressure, while 42 other countries took a radical step to prevent further collapses.

Reports by The New York Times and others eventually revealed that competitive pressures, flawed design and problematic oversight all played a role in the troubling history of the plane, Boeing's best-selling plane ever, and one receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in pre-orders from airlines. around the world when it was grounded.

What were the repercussions?

Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion in a settlement with the Justice Department in 2021 to resolve a criminal charge that it conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the company and rates its planes.

In 2022, Boeing paid an additional $200 million in a deal with US securities regulators over accusations that the company misled investors by suggesting human error was responsible for the two fatal crashes, and ignoring the company's concerns about the plane.

By the time the planes were rehabilitated 20 months after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, Boeing estimated the crisis had cost the company $20.7 billion.

Which airlines use the 737 MAX 9?

Part of Boeing's single-aisle 737 MAX series, the MAX 9 can carry up to 220 passengers, depending on its seating configuration. United Airlines has 79 Max 9 planes in service, the most of any airline, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. Cirium said there are 215 Max 9 aircraft in service around the world. United and Alaska Airlines own about a third of it.

Other companies flying the Max 9 include Copa Airlines in Panama and Aeromexico in the Americas, SCAT Airlines from Kazakhstan, Icelandair, Turkish Airlines and Flydubai.

A Flydubai spokesman said that the three 737 MAX 9 aircraft are in its fleet It had completed the necessary safety inspections within the past 24 months and that the company was awaiting guidance from Boeing before conducting any further inspections.

what happened after that?

Major aviation safety incidents, including those that do not result in injuries or loss of life, typically trigger immediate reviews by regulators in the United States, the European Union, and China.

Investigators look at everything: the plane's design; History of manufacture, maintenance and inspection; weather; Air traffic control decisions; and actions taken by the flight crew. They are researching the causes of the accident as well as lessons related to aviation safety.

In the case of the Alaska Airlines incident, the plane was manufactured in the United States and lost a section of the fuselage while flying in the United States. Therefore, the National Transportation Safety Board will be the lead agency responsible for investigating the accident.

Safety investigations can take several months. They include technical experts from the government, from the airline operating the plane, from labor unions, and from the plane's manufacturer — in this case, Boeing.

The FAA does not need to wait for a safety board report before deciding whether to ground a model aircraft or order expedited inspections. Airlines are usually quick to inspect their planes anyway once they know what to look for.

What does grounding mean for air travelers?

The grounding of one of the industry's most important pillars could put pressure on travellers, with airlines sometimes forced to cancel flights because they do not have the aircraft needed to replace the discontinued model.

By Sunday afternoon, United said it had canceled about 270 Max 9 flights scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, though some of those cancellations may also have been due to severe winter weather in the Northeast.

Alaska Airlines said it had canceled 170 flights by Sunday evening, affecting about 25,000 customers. Overseas airlines such as Turkish Airlines and Panama's Copa Airlines have also grounded their Max 9 aircraft.

Alaska issued a “system-wide regulation.” Flexible travel policy“Which allows passengers to cancel or change their flights without incurring any fees. The airline encourages travelers to use Alaska's website or app themselves, rather than calling the airline's customer service line.

United flight status updates can be found here Connected. If the flight experiences significant delays, United will do so Change fees waived Or give travel credit or refund. The airline has not issued a specific waiver related to aircraft inspections that would further relax the policies.

If the flight is delayed or cancelled, the traveler may be entitled to compensation, depending on the circumstances.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said in a letter to employees that Boeing will hold a live-streamed company-wide meeting on Tuesday to discuss its response to the incident. He stressed the company's commitment to “safety, quality, integrity and transparency.”