The United States opens a formal investigation against Boeing for the Alaska Airlines accident

The US aeronautical authorities announced this Thursday the opening of a formal investigation into Boeing after last week's accident in which one of its Boeing 737 Max 9 lost a panel intended in other configurations for a security door in mid-flight. The plane had to make an emergency landing in Portland (Oregon) from where it had taken off towards Ontario (California). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States already decided last Saturday to immobilize the plane. vast majority of the devices of the 737 Max 9 model, but now it takes an additional step.

“This incident should never have happened and cannot happen again,” the aeronautical agency has written on the social network X. “The FAA has formally notified Boeing that it is conducting an investigation to determine whether Boeing failed to ensure that finished products conformed to their approved design and were fit for safe operation in accordance with FAA regulations,” it adds. the statement, dalso disseminated through the organization's website. “Passenger safety, not speed, will determine the schedule for the Boeing 737-9 Max’s return to service,” he adds. The agency notes that “the aircraft manufacturer's manufacturing practices must meet the strict safety standards for which they are legally responsible.”

The FAA's decision comes after US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg hinted on Wednesday that the Max 9 would not rush back into service. At a transportation conference in Washington, he said the planes would remain grounded until regulators deemed them safe to fly, which he called a “only consideration.”

The first preliminary inspections by both Alaska and United have detected loose parts on other planes in that same area. The panels that cover the door opening are held in place with bolts and dowels. The companies have not given details of what problems were initially detected. The hypothesis has even been considered that the restraints had not been placed on the plane that suffered the accident. The alternative is that they were not placed correctly or that there was some defective material.

This Wednesday, Boeing Chairman and CEO Dave Calhoun and company leadership held a teleconference meeting with all employees dedicated to the importance of safety and highlighting how every detail matters. In it, Calhoun intoned a mea culpa “We are going to address this, first of all, by acknowledging our mistake,” said the manager, speaking from a factory in Renton (Washington) where those planes are produced. “We are going to approach it with total transparency at all times. We will work with the NTSB [Junta Nacional de Seguridad en el Transporte] that is investigating the accident itself to find out what the original cause is,” said Calhoun, according to a fragment of the intervention published by the company.

This Thursday, Alaska Airlines announced that it had taken the decision to cancel all flights of the 737-9 MAX aircraft until Saturday, January 13 while performing inspections and preparing to return to service. “This is equivalent to between 110 and 150 flights daily. “We hope this measure will provide passengers with a little more security, and we are working tirelessly to relocate affected passengers to other flights,” the company said.

Boeing's price has fallen sharply at the start of the year as a result of the accident, the immobilization of the Air 737 Max 9 fleet and the opening of the investigation.

Although some more have been delivered, in total there are 215 aircraft of the 737 Max 9 variant operational, according to data provided by the consulting firm Cirium to EL PAÍS. Aside from Alaska Airlines' 65, United Airlines has 79; the Panamanian Copa, 29, and the Mexican Aeroméxico, 20. Turkish Airlines has 5 and the rest are widely distributed among a few companies. Not all of them have the same configuration in which the rear security door is covered with a panel and they are the ones that have needed the inspection.

The incident has once again put Boeing and its 737 Max model in the eye of the hurricane after its flight permit was withdrawn in 2019 — the American manufacturer even suspended its manufacturing — following two fatal accidents that cost it its life. more than 300 people in another version of the 737 Max, the 8. In October 2018, the flight crashed in the Java Sea, in Indonesia. 610 of the low-cost company Lion Air operated by a 737 Max 8; A few months later, in March 2019, 157 people died on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in the largest air disaster of that year — the plane model was the same.

The investigation that was launched after the two accidents revealed flaws in the design of the model's stabilization system (MCAS) and that the company, despite having assured that the 737 Max were as safe as any other type of aircraft, knew of the flaw. For misleading investors, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined the company $200 million and imposed a penalty of another million on its former CEO, Dennis A. Muilenburg. The FAA maintained the ban on the 737 Max from flying until November 2020, but the crisis of confidence dragged on for longer and Boeing was now beginning to overcome it. Therefore, the new incident has been a blow to the company.

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