The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has opened a formal investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX 9 exit plug blowout incident aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 last Friday, telling Boeing that the incident “should have never happened and it cannot happen again”.
Informing the beleaguered aircraft manufacturer of the investigation, the FAA wrote in a letter to Boeing’s VP of Total Quality, Carole Murray, that it believed the aerospace giant “may have failed to ensure its completed products conformed to the approved design and were in a condition for safe operation”.
Following last Friday’s terrifying exit plug blowout, the FAA grounded approximately 171 Boeing 737-9 aircraft pending detailed inspections to ensure that the plug exit on other aircraft was installed correctly.
Although the full inspection process is still ongoing, both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have confirmed that during preliminary engineering checks, they had found evidence that securing bolts required tightening, as well as other issues with the hardware.
The FAA has yet to confirm exactly how many aircraft have exit plugs with loose bolts.
Hopes of quickly returning grounded aircraft back to service are fading with the FAA setting the stage for a much longer investigation in which MAX-9 jets with exit plugs remain out of service for the duration.
In a statement, the FAA didn’t commit to a timeline but stated: “The safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning the Boeing 737-9 Max to service.”
Boeing has been given 10 days to hand over “evidence or statements you might care to make concerning this matter”.
The letter from the FAA’s John Piccola continued: “Your response should contain the root cause of the encountered condition(s), products/articles affected, service impacts, the extent of any immediate/long-term action taken to correct and preclude its recurrence, and any mitigating circumstances which you believe may be relevant”.
Alaska Airlines has 65 ground 737-9s and is currently cancelling up to 150 flights per day as a result of the grounding. The Seattle-based carrier is yet comment on the impact that this latest development may have on its operation.
