United Airlines and Alaska Airlines on Monday both reported that loose hardware had been discovered on some of their Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes during preliminary inspections after a dramatic mid-flight incident last week.
The disclosures come as US federal transportation inspectors probe what caused a so-called door plug component to blow out on Friday last week on an Alaska Airlines passenger plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
United on Monday said it had “found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening.”
Photo: AFP
Hours later, Alaska Airlines said its staff had found that “loose hardware was visible on some aircraft.”
Boeing shares tumbled on Monday as investors began to assess the financial implications of the incident, while US aviation authorities provided airlines with protocols to check planes with similar configurations to the 737 MAX 9 aircraft involved in Friday’s incident.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) inspectors late on Monday said that they did not find bolts for the component that came off the Alaska Airlines flight, but had not determined whether they existed or had flown off with the panel.
Through further equipment testing, “we will be able to determine whether the bolts were there,” NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters.
Homendy did not comment directly on the latest disclosures from United and Alaska about loose components, saying the probe was focused on Friday last week’s incident, but the board could issue an urgent safety recommendation if need be.
Hundreds of flights have been canceled due to the grounding of a fraction of the MAX fleet.
“As operators conduct the required inspections, we are staying in close contact with them and will help address any and all findings,” Boeing said late on Monday. “We are committed to ensuring every Boeing airplane meets design specifications and the highest safety and quality standards.”
Aviation analysts said the issue appeared to be a quality control defect rather than a design issue akin to the problem with a flawed flight handling system involved in two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, but Boeing has struggled with supply chain and quality control problems since the MAX returned to service, limiting its output and hitting its bottom line.
Boeing last month urged airlines to undertake additional inspections to check for loose hardware on plane rudder control systems after an international operator discovered a bolt with a missing nut while performing routine maintenance.
United has 79 MAX 9 planes, more than any other carrier.
The US airline said it has canceled 200 MAX 9 flights since the incident and expected “significant cancelations” yesterday.
Following the Alaska Airlines incident, the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered operators to ground 171 jets with the same door plug configuration.
A door plug is a cover panel used to fill an unneeded emergency exit in planes with smaller seat configurations.
The incident is the latest setback for Boeing, particularly over the 737 MAX.
The worst were two crashes — a Lion Air flight in October 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019 — that caused the deaths of 346 people and triggered the grounding of all 737 MAX planes for nearly two years.
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