01/08/2024 – 12:53
A teacher at a school in the US state of Oregon found part of the door of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane that came loose mid-flight, the US Transportation Safety Authority said.
The discovery of the piece may help clarify what happened. The incident did not cause any serious injuries, but it forced airlines and industry safety organizations around the world to ground some versions of these planes, awaiting inspections.
The head of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Sunday (7) that a teacher found the door panel in the backyard of his home in Portland, Oregon, in the western United States.
On Friday (5), Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland Airport and, shortly after, the crew reported a “pressurization issue,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). .
The plane quickly returned to Portland. Images posted on social media showed a huge hole where the side panel had burst, with emergency oxygen masks falling from the ceiling.
“I am pleased to announce that we have found the doorstop,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference.
A door stop is a cover panel used to cover an unnecessary emergency exit depending on the number of seats available.
“In the photos, I only see the outside of the door frame, the white parts. We can't see anything else, but we're going to collect it to start analyzing it,” said the person in charge.
– 'Immediate revisions' –
On Network X (formerly Twitter), the FAA stated that it “requires immediate reviews of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft before they can return to flight.”
The administration added that 171 planes of this model will have to be inspected and that each inspection will take four to eight hours.
Boeing has so far delivered about 218 737 MAX aircraft, the company told AFP.
Last night, the manufacturer said that its CEO, Dave Calhoun, called a safety meeting with all employees for Tuesday (9), at the company's factory in Washington state, and canceled a management meeting.
“In light of the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 incident, we are canceling the summit to focus on our support of Alaska Airlines and the ongoing investigation… (NTSB), and any of our airline customers who experience an impact on their fleets,” Calhoun said in a Boeing statement.
– 'Top priority' –
Kyle Rinker, a passenger on the flight affected by the incident, told CNN that the incident occurred shortly after takeoff.
Another passenger, Vi Nguyen, told The New York Times that she woke up to a loud bang. “I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the oxygen mask right in front of me,” she reported.
“I looked to the left, and the side panel of the plane was gone,” he said.
According to the website FlightAware, the Boeing 737 Max 9 took off at 5:07 pm bound for Ontario and returned to Portland airport about 20 minutes later.
The plane was certified in October, according to FAA records available online.
“Safety is our top priority, and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers,” Boeing said in a statement.
– Several airlines affected –
Alaska Airlines, which grounded all of its planes of this model, reported on Saturday that more than 25% of its Max 9 fleet has already been inspected, with no irregularities reported.
United Airlines, which has the world's largest fleet of 737 MAX 9s, indicated that it grounded 46 planes and that 33 have already been checked.
Aeroméxico will keep its 19 B737 MAX-9 aircraft on the ground for inspection, the airline said in a statement.
Panama's Copa Airlines announced it had grounded 21 aircraft, and Turkish Airlines said on Sunday it had grounded five aircraft in its fleet.
Icelandair noted that none of its 737 MAX 9s have the aircraft configuration specified in the FAA grounding order.
Boeing's 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months following a ban in the wake of two MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that left 346 people dead.
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