Alaska Airlines has re-grounded 18 of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet just hours after returning them to service following the explosive blowout of a deactivated emergency door on plane that had only be delivered to the carrier at the end of October.
The Seattle-based carrier had voluntarily grounded its entire 737-9 fleet following the accident but quickly returned around a quarter of the planes back to service after claiming inspections that had taken the form of historic heavy maintenance checks had uncovered “no concerning findings”.
Hours later, Alaska Airlines was once again forced to cancel flights after concluding that the inspections might not be compliant with an Emergency Airworthiness Directive issued by the Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday.
The directive orders urgent inspections on around 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9, which includes 65 at Alaska and a further 79 MAX 9 airplanes operated by United Airlines.
In additional news, Alaska has now confirmed:
- Several passengers on flight 1282 were injured and required medical attention
- So far, 160 flights have been canceled, impacting around 23,000 passengers
- Cancellations are now expected through mid-week at the earliest
The National Transport Safety Board (NTSB), which is leading the investigation into the cause of Friday’s accident, also confirmed that the deactivated or ‘plugged’ exit from Alaska Flight 1282 had still not been found.
The agency has urged the public to contact law enforcement if they spot the debris.
The inspections are supposed to take between 4 and 8 hours. Yet Alaska cleared a quarter of their MAX9 fleet overnight. That leads me to believe they looked at the plug, maybe pounded on it, and said “ok!”. The FAA probably wants the interior to be torn down and the plug more carefully inspected.
They should consider inspecting the 737-900ER door plugs, too, because it’s the same design.
They might find that there was a manufacturing defect, such as the wrong screws used.