U.S. authorities are demanding the inspection of 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets following an Alaska Airlines incident on Friday that saw a gaping hole blow in the fuselage of a MAX 9 plane at 16,000 feet.
The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington D.C. said the move requires airlines to inspect aircraft before further flights take place. Required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.
Both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines earlier said they were both grounding their 737 MAX 9 jets for safety checks. Alaska has 65 MAX 9 jets, while United has 79. Reuters reports that Alaska has resumed operations using about a quarter of the planes following inspections that turned up no concerning findings.
The website FlightAware.com shows 110 Alaska Airlines cancellations today; 14% of all flights.
The Alaska Airlines plane was en route from Portland to Ontario, California with 177 passengers and crew when a section of the fuselage blew out, including a window. The plane returned to Portland with no major physical injuries reported.
It is the latest very public problem involving the MAX, Boeing’s best-selling model, which was grounded for almost two years following crashes in 2018 and 2019. Boeing is also dealing with a succession of production or quality problems.
The company told airlines in December to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system. A CNN aviation expert said the Alaska Airlines incident doesn’t seem related, but there’s been no official word from authorities.
WestJet and Air Canada fly the MAX 8 plane, but not the MAX 9, according to their websites. The New York Times reports that United Airlines has 79 Max 9s in service, the most of any airline, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company. All told, there are 215 Max 9 aircraft in service around the world, Cirium said. United and Alaska Airlines have about a third of them.
“Following tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement. “My heart goes out to those who were on this flight. I am so sorry for what you experienced.”
The airlines’ MAX 9 planes will be returned to service after full maintenance and safety inspections, which Minicucci said should take a few days.
“We are working with Boeing and regulators to understand what occurred tonight and will share updates as more information is available,” he said.
Alaska Airlines plane at San Francisco International Airport.
Passenger Evan Smith was on the flight and described the moment the blowout occurred to the CBC.
“You heard a big loud bang to the left rear. A whooshing sound and all the oxygen masks deployed instantly and everyone got those on,” he said.
Smith said a boy and his mother were sitting in the row where the window blew out. The boy’s shirt was sucked off him and out of the plane, he said.
Passenger photos show the hole in the side of the airplane next to passenger seats.
U.S. aviation authorities announced an investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday a team of experts in structures, operations and systems would arrive on the scene later that day.
Boeing is looking into the incident.
“We are working to gather more information and are in contact with our airline customer,” the company said.
Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people and leading to a near two-year worldwide grounding of all Max 8 and Max 9 planes.
The planes were restored for service after Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system that some blamed for the crashes.
