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.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS