FAA Grounds 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX Aircraft

The FAA has grounded 171 737-9 MAX aircraft, following an airframe panel blowing off an Alaskan Airlines flight from Portland to Ontario. United Airlines will also be grounding all 80 aircraft following this occurrence. Following the incident, Alaskan airlines immediately grounded all 737-9 Max’s in its fleet and will be carrying out thorough inspections. Each aircraft is expected to take 4 - 8 hours, in order to carry out maintenance inspections. This incident has promptly followed a previous discovery of a loose bolt in the rudder system of a Max aircraft from an undisclosed American Airline.

The Alaskan Jet was bound for Ontario, California after departing from Portland, Oregon. Shortly six minutes after take off; at approximately 16,000ft a pressurisation issue was detected in the Cabin and the plane returned safely to Portland at 17:26. Videos onboard the flight show a gaping hole on the side of the aircraft and thankfully no injuries were reported. The MAX 9 has an emergency exit door cut behind the wings for dense passenger configuration usage. Passenger, Emma VU told CNN she sent a text message to her parents stating there was an emergency in her aircraft. “I’ve never had to use it before – but I knew that this was the moment.” VU, like others was comforted by the flight attendants and reassured everything would be okay. The Boeing aircraft had only recently been delivered and certified by the FAA, around two months ago. Boeing is committed to the investigation are ready to support the investigation.