A Boeing 737 Max 9 airliner remained grounded in the United States on Sunday as airlines awaited instructions from the plane’s manufacturer and the Federal Aviation Administration on how to inspect planes and resume service, two days after a harrowing flight raised concerns. About the plane.
No one was seriously injured in the accident that occurred on board an Alaska Airlines plane on Friday night, as part of the Max 9 fuselage exploded in midair, exposing passengers to strong winds. The plane landed safely, but the incident on a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, spooked passengers and prompted an immediate call for safety checks on Max 9 planes with similar seating configurations.
Boeing and the FAA have been working on drafting a letter to airlines — primarily Alaska and United Airlines — containing detailed instructions on how to inspect planes, according to a person familiar with the process. Those discussions were underway Sunday, and the FAA received final approval of the contents of the letter, as is usually the case.
Meanwhile, Alaska, United and other airlines said they were grounding all of their Max 9 planes, though they announced Saturday that some were considered safe to fly. Federal authorities focused their attention on the mid-cabin door seal, which was part of the fuselage that tore apart at 16,000 feet on Friday, and is used to fill the space where an emergency exit would be located if the plane crashed. Equipped with more seating.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading an investigation into the accident, has not determined a cause and is searching for the missing piece of the plane. The board said it would consider a wide range of potential factors including FAA oversight, Boeing’s manufacturing process and installation or maintenance work done on the plane.
“Anything is possible, we are very expanding, and nothing is off the table,” board president Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference Saturday evening.
The Federal Aviation Administration said on Saturday that the required inspections will include 171 Max 9 aircraft operated by US airlines or on US territory. She said inspections should take four to eight hours per aircraft. Airlines abroad, including Turkish Airlines and Panama’s Copa Airlines, have also grounded Max 9 planes.
The FAA order contributed to the cancellation of hundreds of flights over the weekend. Alaska, which has 65 Max 9 planes, said it canceled 170 flights on Sunday due to the Max 9 grounding, affecting about 25,000 customers. She said she expects a “significant” number of additional cancellations in the first half of the week. The airline also said it is awaiting further instructions from Boeing and the FAA regarding door plug inspections on its Max 9 planes.
Travelers took to social media to complain about long phone waits for Alaska customer service and inadequate compensation while they waited at the airport and faced long delays and sudden cancellations.
United Airlines said it canceled about 270 flights on Saturday and Sunday that it was planning to take on board its Max 9 planes. It said it was able to maintain 145 other flights during the two days by replacing other planes.
United has 79 Max 9 aircraft, more than any other airline. The airline said in a statement on Sunday that it had grounded all of those planes and had begun removing door panels and conducting initial inspections on those planes while it awaited further FAA instructions on what inspections would need to be conducted for the planes to be able to fly again. .
“We continue to work with the FAA to clarify the inspection process and requirements for returning all Max 9 aircraft to service,” the airline said in a statement. “We are working with customers to reaccommodate them on other flights, and in some cases we have been able to avoid cancellations by switching to other aircraft types.”
This is the type of incident that “until you get into the investigation — you determine all the facts, circumstances, circumstances of that particular event — you determine” whether this is just a one-time problem or a systemic problem, said Greg Faith, an aviation security expert and former NTSB investigator.
Meanwhile, those who build, service, operate and regulate aircraft will all be in the spotlight.
It is not clear whether Boeing is responsible for what happened to the Alaska Airlines plane, but the incident raises new questions for the manufacturer and puts additional pressure on it. Another version of the Max plane, the 737 Max 8, was involved in two accidents that killed hundreds of people in 2018 and 2019 and led to the grounding of that plane worldwide.
“The problem is what’s going on at Boeing,” said John Goglia, a longtime aviation safety consultant and retired member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane accidents.
Last month, the company urged airlines to inspect more than 1,300 delivered Max jets for a possible loose screw in the rudder control system. Over the summer, Boeing said a major supplier improperly drilled holes in a component that helps maintain cabin pressure. Since then, Boeing has invested and worked closely with that supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, to address production issues.
Spirit AeroSystems also worked on the 737 Max 9 fuselage, including fabricating and installing the door seal that failed on an Alaska Airlines flight.
This weekend, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun canceled a previously scheduled leadership summit for the company’s vice presidents this week, and instead plans to host a live company-wide meeting on Tuesday to discuss its response to the incident and underscore Boeing’s commitment to “safety,” he said in a statement. Message to employees: “Quality, integrity and transparency.”
“When it comes to the safety of our products and services, every decision and every action matters,” he said. “When serious incidents like this occur, it is important for us to work transparently with our customers and regulators to understand and address the causes of the event, and to ensure it does not happen again. This is and must be the focus of our team now.”
Deliveries of another Boeing aircraft, the twin-aisle 787 Dreamliner, were halted for more than a year, until the summer of 2022, while the planemaker worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to address various quality concerns, including tiny gaps in the airframe. body.
Another flaw was discovered last summer, slowing deliveries of the plane again. Production of both the 737 and 787 has been slow amid those and other quality and supply chain issues.
Max was grounded in early 2019 after two accidents that killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Over the course of more than 20 months, Boeing worked with regulatory agencies around the world to fix issues with the plane’s flight control software and other components.
By the time passenger flights on the Max resumed in late 2020, the crisis had cost the company about $20 billion.
The plane’s two medium-sized models, the Max 8 and Max 9, have flown since then. But the smallest, the Max 7, and the largest, the Max 10, have not yet been approved by regulators.
The MAX is the best-selling plane in Boeing’s history. The more than 4,500 outstanding orders for the aircraft represent more than 76% of Boeing’s order book. The plane is also very popular among airlines: Of the nearly three million flights scheduled globally this month, about 5 percent are scheduled using the Max, mostly the Max 8, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider.
“Every American deserves a full explanation from Boeing and the FAA on what went wrong and what steps are being taken to ensure another accident does not occur in the future,” Sen. J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, said in a post on Saturday. On X.
Mark Walker And Christine Chung Contributed to reports.