Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 planes won’t be returning to service any time soon as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Friday they would not allow the planes to return to the skies until entirely satisfied with their safety.
The decision to order airlines to immediately stop flying MAX 9s came after part of an Alaska Airlines plane’s “door plug” fell off at 16,000 feet in the air shortly after taking off Portland, Oregon, on Jan. 5. It left a hole on the side of the plane, causing a rapid loss of cabin pressure that caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling. Pilots made a safe emergency landing with 174 passengers and six crew members.
“We are working to make sure nothing like this happens again,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said Friday. “Our only concern is the safety of American travelers, and the Boeing 737-9 MAX will not return to the skies until we are entirely satisfied it is safe.”
While airlines await inspection instructions from Boeing, those instructions must be first approved by the federal regulators. On Monday, Boeing submitted a first round of plans to prove MAX 9’s airworthiness and get them back in service, only to have to rescind them the next day.
“Every Boeing 737-9 Max with a plug door will remain grounded until the FAA finds each can safely return to operation,” the FAA said Tuesday. “Boeing offered an initial version of instructions yesterday, which they are now revising because of feedback received in response. Upon receiving the revised version of instructions from Boeing, the FAA will conduct a thorough review,”
In an update on Friday, the federal aviation regulators said they are requiring Boeing to provide additional data before they can approve an “extensive and rigorous” inspection and maintenance process for returning MAX 9s back to the air.
While it was “encouraged by the exhaustive nature” of Boeing’s instructions, the FAA said it would not approve the plans until it reviewed data from the initial round of 40 inspections.
In another signal that the checks on MAX 9s aren’t going to finish quickly, Alaska and United Airlines, the only two U.S.-based airlines that fly MAX 9s, have extended the suspension of those flights through Jan. 16.
Alaska estimated that the cancellation would affect anywhere between 110 to 150 flights each day, while United said it would affect 200 flights per day.
“We regret the significant disruption that has been caused for our guests by cancellations due to these aircraft being out of service. However, the safety of our employees and guests is our highest priority, and we will only return these aircraft to service when all findings have been fully resolved and meet all FAA and Alaska’s stringent standards,” the airline said.
Both Alaska and United Airlines say they found some “loose hardware” in the assembly of door plugs—the piece that dramatically flew off mid-air during last week’s incident. A door plug has a window and is placed where an emergency exit is installed in order to accommodate extra seats that require more paths for evacuation.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug,” United said. “For example, bolts that needed additional tightening.”
In what is popularly known as the Boeing 737 MAX crisis, the FAA joined other major global aviation regulators to ground the 737 MAX for more than a year because of fatal crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia just five months apart in 2018 and 2019.
The two disasters, which killed a total of 346 passengers and crew, were both found to be tied to a design flaw in the jet’s flight control system.
The crashes also spurred numerous of lawsuits against the plane-making giant, including one brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2021, Boeing paid a $244 million fine as part of a $2.5 billion settlement, in which the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Boeing.
From The Epoch Times
