(Reuters) – Alaska Airlines is grounding dozens of Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets for safety checks after a cabin panel blowout forced a brand-new airplane loaded with passengers to make an emergency landing.
The piece of fuselage tore off the left side of the jet as it climbed out of Portland, Oregon, en route for Ontario in California on Friday, forcing pilots to turn back and land safely with 171 passengers and six crew on board.
It is the latest mishap involving Boeing’s best-selling model, which was grounded for almost two years following crashes in 2018 and 2019, and comes as Boeing and a major supplier are grappling with a succession of production or quality problems.
There were no immediate indications of the cause of the apparent structural failure nor any reports of injuries.
Airline CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement its fleet of 65 similar planes would be returned to service only after precautionary maintenance and safety inspections, which he expected to be completed in the “next few days”.
U.S. aviation authorities announced an investigation.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday a team of experts in structures, operations and systems would arrive on the scene later that day.
Boeing also said it was looking into the incident.
“We are working to gather more information and are in contact with our airline customer,” Boeing said.
Flight 1282 had reached just over 16,000 feet when the blowout happened, according to FlightRadar24.
“We’d like to get down,” the pilot told air traffic control, according to a recording posted on liveatc.net.
“We are declaring an emergency. We do need to come down to 10,000,” the pilot added, referring to the initial staging altitude for such emergencies, below which breathing is considered possible for healthy people without extra oxygen.
Social media posts showed oxygen masks deployed and a portion of the aircraft’s side wall missing.
Passenger photos appeared to show that a section of the fuselage sometimes used for an optional rear mid-cabin exit door had been torn away, leaving a door-shaped gap.
The extra door is typically installed by low-cost airlines using extra seats that require more paths for evacuation.
However, those doors are permanently “plugged”, or deactivated, on Alaska Airlines jets.
The new MAX 9 was delivered to Alaska Airlines in late October and certified in early November, according to FAA data.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he had been briefed on the incident.
“Grateful to the flight crew that kept passengers safe during this terrifying incident. FAA is supporting the NTSB’s investigation and will take all appropriate steps going forward,” he wrote in a statement on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
PRODUCTION SNAGS
“Whenever you have a rapid decompression such as this, it’s a major safety event,” said Anthony Brickhouse, an air safety expert at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“I can’t imagine what these passengers experienced. It would have been loud. The wind would be rushing through that cabin. It was a probably pretty violent situation, and definitely a scary situation.”
The incident shows the importance of passengers keeping their seatbelts buckled while seated in an airplane, even if the fasten seatbelt light is off, Brickhouse said, noting that the oxygen mask system appeared to have functioned properly.
Reports said the seat next to the left-hand panel, which contains an ordinary passenger window, was unoccupied.
“This is a very, very serious situation and it could have been a lot worse,” he said. “If someone had been sitting in that seat, and they weren’t buckled in, it would have been a different situation.”
The 737 MAX was grounded for 20 months worldwide after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 linked to poorly designed cockpit software killed 346 people in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Boeing is awaiting certification of its smaller 737 MAX 7 and larger MAX 10.
China’s aviation regulator is conducting an emergency meeting to consider a response to the incident, including a possible new grounding of the Boeing MAX fleet in the country, Bloomberg news reported on Saturday.
China was the first country to ground the MAX in 2019 and only recently started accepting new deliveries of larger Boeing 787s following a broader Sino-U.S. trade dispute, though domestic services using the MAX resumed in January last year.
Last week, Boeing said it was urging airlines to inspect all 737 MAX airplanes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder control system.
The FAA said it was closely monitoring Boeing 737 MAX inspections and would consider additional action if more loose or missing hardware was found.
The fuselage for Boeing 737 planes, its most popular model, is made by Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems, which separated from Boeing in 2005.
In August, Boeing identified a quality problem involving Spirit that resulted in improperly drilled holes on the aft pressure bulkhead.
It was not immediately clear whether the door “plug” used to replace the door when not selected by airlines is also made by the Wichita, Kansas-based, supplier, nor whether the Alaska incident was related to factory processes or design.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comments on how that part of the jet is assembled. Spirit AeroSystems referred questions to Boeing.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Valerie Insinna and Tim Hepher; Additional reporting by Akanksha Khushi; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Jan Harvey and Diane Craft)
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