The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has no specific details yet about why the mid-cabin door plug on an Alaska Airlines Boeing MAX 9 failed on Friday. The Board doesn’t want to speculate about the cause as the investigation has just got underway. Outside experts point to a manufacturing or oversight quality issue at either Boeing or tier-1 supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which produces the 737 MAX fuselage sections complete with door plugs.
During a press conference on Saturday evening, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy qualified the plug issue as an accident and not an incident, confirming how serious the blowout of the door plug and part of the cabin side wall could have been.
There were no passengers on the two seats immediately next to the plug and passengers were still wearing seat belts, as the aircraft was still climbing after departing from Portland
. If the accident had happened at cruise altitude FL350, with passengers and cabin crew walking around the cabin, the consequences could have been far more serious, Homendy said.
Unlock the Full AirInsight Analysis & KPI Models
Get instant access to proprietary fleet valuation models, production & delivery forecasts, engine cost analytics, and the complete subscriber archive.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
