Washington (United States) (AFP) – The US air safety regulator reported that it will immobilize some Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes to undergo an inspection and this Sunday there are more announcements of airlines leaving their planes on the ground, after a plane lost a window in mid-flight.
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requested “an immediate inspection of some Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes before they can fly again,” the agency indicated on the X social network.
The regulatory agency reported that this directive affects about 171 aircraft worldwide and that each inspection will take between four and eight hours.
Alaska and United Airlines are the airlines that have the largest number of MAX 9s. Other airlines such as Icelandair, Turkish Airlines, Aeromexico and Copa have smaller fleets of these aircraft.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland, on the west coast of the United States, on Friday and while in the air one of the windows exploded and the cabin lost pressure.
The incident that occurred at 5:00 p.m. local time forced the plane carrying 177 passengers to return to the airport.
Images published on social networks showed a window detached and oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling of the device.
Kyle Rinker, a passenger on the flight affected by the incident, told CNN that the window exploded just after takeoff.
Another passenger, Vi Nguyen, told The New York Times that she woke up to a bang.
“I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the oxygen mask right in front of me,” Nguyen told the American newspaper. “I looked to the left and the side panel of the plane was gone,” she explained.
According to the FlightAware website, the Boeing 737 Max 9 took off at 5:07 p.m., heading to Ontario, and returned to Portland airport about twenty minutes later.
The plane was certified in October, according to FAA records available online.
Boeing has delivered some 218 737 MAX 9 aircraft worldwide to date, the company told AFP.
“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.
“A technical team from Boeing is supporting the investigation” of the authorities into the event, he added.
Several airlines affected
Alaska Airlines, which grounded all of its aircraft of that model, reported on Saturday that more than a quarter 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 grounded all of its aircraft of that model and Copa Airlines announced that it immobilized 21 aircraft.
Turkish Airlines announced on Sunday that it had grounded five aircraft in its fleet.
Icelandair stated that none of its 737 MAX 9s feature the aircraft configuration specified in the FAA's grounding order.
Boeing's 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide following a ban following two MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that left 346 dead.
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