The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it has opened an investigation into whether Boeing failed to ensure its 737 Max 9 plane was safe and built to comply with a design approved by the agency.
The FAA said the investigation stemmed from the loss of a fuselage panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines shortly after takeoff Friday from Portland, Oregon, leaving a hole in the side of the passenger cabin. The plane returned to Portland for an emergency landing.
“This incident should never have happened and can never happen again,” the agency said.
In a letter to Boeing dated January 10, the FAA said that after the Portland accident, it was notified of additional problems with other Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft. The letter does not include details of other problems reported to the agency. Alaska and United Airlines, which operate most of the Max 9 planes used in the United States, said Monday that they discovered loose hardware on the panel when conducting initial inspections of their planes.
The new investigation is the latest setback for Boeing, which is one of only two suppliers of large aircraft to most airlines. The company has struggled to regain public trust after two crashes, in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, in which two 737 MAX 8 planes killed a total of 346 people.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating why a 737 Max 9 panel, also known as a door seal, flew off a Boeing plane. The security panel is trying to determine if the screws that would have prevented the panel from moving and opening are missing or installed incorrectly. The plug is placed where the emergency exit would be if the plane had the maximum number of seats.
No one was seriously hurt in the accident, but aviation experts said that if the panel had exploded when the plane was at a higher altitude, the consequences could have been much more serious. Passengers and flight attendants would have been walking around the plane and may not have been able to return to their seats to put on oxygen masks and secure their seatbelts. The Alaska Airlines plane was at about 16,000 feet and still climbing when the panel tore off.
Prior to Thursday’s announcement, the FAA was working with Boeing to review the company’s instructions to inspect 171 grounded 737 MAX 9 planes. The review was announced after reports of loose screws from two airlines.
“Boeing’s manufacturing practices need to comply with high safety standards that it is legally responsible for meeting,” the FAA said in the statement announcing the investigation.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun on Tuesday promised transparency in the company’s response to the accident. He also said the company “acknowledges our mistake” without clarifying what he was referring to. Boeing declined to provide further details about this statement.
“We will cooperate fully and transparently with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board in their investigations,” Boeing said in a statement.
United has 79 planes and Alaska has 65 planes, but Alaska had the largest share of grounding cancellations because the Max 9 planes make up 20 percent of its fleet.
By notifying Boeing of its investigation, the agency began a process that could lead to enforcement action against the company, said Arjun Garg, a former senior counsel and deputy administrator of the FAA. In other such cases, the FAA has imposed fines and reached agreements requiring companies to make changes to fix problems identified by regulators.
“At the end of the day, the FAA cares about people’s safety, not collecting penalties or anything like that,” said Garg, now a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington. “They just want to make the system safer.”
Mark Lindquist, an attorney who represents families of victims involved in the Max 8 crashes, said the FAA has become more proactive than in the past by quickly opening an investigation into the Boeing 737 Max 9. Lindquist said the FAA will take ) A much broader look at the aircraft than the NTSB, which aims to determine the cause of accidents and provide recommendations on how to prevent them.
“The tone of this announcement indicates that the FAA believes there is a potential for loss of life and the severity of quality control issues at Boeing,” Mr. Lindquist said.
Robert Mann, a former airline executive who now works as an aviation industry consultant, said the FAA had to act quickly because it could not afford to worry travelers about the safety of Boeing planes.
Mr. Mann said the FAA would likely take a hands-on approach to inspecting the 737 Max 9 planes as it did the Max 8. He noted that Steve Dixon, who was the agency’s director at the time and a former airline pilot, flew the Max 8 before the FAA allowed it. (FAA) authorized commercial flights on the plane in late 2020 after the plane had been grounded for nearly two years.
“This is an acknowledgment of a long-standing problem and a very public rebuke,” Mr Mann said.
Billy Nolen, the agency’s former acting administrator, said the FAA’s investigation provides an opportunity for Boeing and the agency to ensure they have determined whether problems with the 737 Max 9 planes are isolated or systemic. “This is something they will know when they pass some of these 171 aircraft,” he said.
The FAA is responsible for making sure every component of the plane meets the agency’s standards, Mr. Nolen said. The fact that airlines found loose bolts on other Max 9 planes provides enough reason for the agency to open an investigation.