How safe are Boeing 737 planes? Fleets grounded after panel blows out on Alaska Airlines

09.01.2024 - 02:37 / euronews.com / United Airlines / Jennifer Homendy / Rebecca Ann Hughes / Airlines

On Friday, a fuselage panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane seven minutes after takeoff from Portland, Oregon.

The rapid loss of cabin pressure pulled the clothes off a child and caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling, but miraculously none of the 171 passengers and six crew members were injured.

Hours after the terrifying incident, Alaska Airlines announced that it would ground its entire fleet of 65 Max 9s for inspections and maintenance.

But how did this malfunction occur and how likely is it to happen again?

On Sunday, investigators said they had found the piece of fuselage that blew off the Boeing airliner and hoped it would provide physical evidence of what went wrong.

The gaping hole in the side of the Alaska Airlines jet opened up where aircraft maker Boeing fits a ‘plug’ to cover an emergency exit that the airline does not use. The plugs are on most Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.

The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily grounded those planes until they undergo inspections of the area around the door plug.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has begun an investigation that is likely to last months and focus on the panelled-over exit door that blew off.

A federal official also said that the Alaska Airlines Max 9 was not being used for flights to Hawaii after a warning light that could have indicated a pressurisation problem lit up on three different flights.

Alaska Airlines decided to restrict the aircraft from long flights over water so the plane “could return very quickly to an airport” if the warning light reappeared, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB.

Homendy cautioned, however, that the pressurisation light might be unrelated to Friday’s incident.

Alaska Airlines has grounded its entire fleet of 65 Max 9s for inspections and maintenance.

The company said it had cancelled 170 flights on Sunday, affecting 25,000 passengers, and expects cancellations to continue through the first half of the week.

Early on Monday, 20 per cent of the carrier's flights were cancelled - 139 in all - according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.

United Airlines, the world’s biggest operator of Max 9s, grounded its entire fleet of 79 Max 9s and is seeking to “clarify the inspection process and requirements for returning” them to service.

Six other airlines use the Max 9: Panama's Copa Airlines, Aeromexico, Turkish airlines, Icelandair, flydubai and SCAT Airlines in Kazakhstan, according to aviation data services Cirium.

While the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has similarly taken the decision to ground these aircraft, it says no EU airlines currently use them in the same configuration as the affected Alaska Airlines flight and therefore none have been grounded.

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