The National Transportation Safety Board is wrapping up its initial on-the-ground investigation in Portland into why part of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out from the plane midflight on Friday. It comes as Alaska Airlines and United Airlines report finding loose bolts on other 737 Max 9 airplanes.
Top transportation safety officials have pieced together the main sequence of events Friday night, but they say it could be more than a year before federal investigators know why part of the plane fell off, forcing the emergency landing.
In this Jan. 7, 2024 image supplied by the National Transportation Safety Board, teams investigate a Boeing 737-9 MAX plane in Portland, Ore., which was involved in an incident on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Jan. 5, 2024.
National Transportation Safety Board
Officials Monday recovered a major piece of the Boeing 737 Max 9 that was torn from the body of the plane and fell into the backyard of a Portland-area science teacher. It’s called a door plug because it plugs the spot where an emergency exit door could go.
The door plug now makes its way to the NTSB labs in Washington, D.C., where investigators hope to determine exactly why a hole was ripped in the side of the plane, forcing an emergency landing 20 minutes later at Portland International Airport. No significant physical injuries have been reported among the 171 passengers and six crew members.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said all four flight attendants aboard described a chaotic scene in which it was challenging to communicate.
“This was a really significant event with zero information at the time,” Homendy told reporters at a briefing Monday night. “There’s a lot of trauma that they are working through. It’s going to be a long process — it was terrifying.”
Homendy said as the airplane cabin lost pressure, the cockpit door flew open to the surprise of the crew. Investigators learned the door is designed to open during rapid decompression, but the crew on the flight out of Portland didn’t know that at the time.
After the incident Friday, federal regulators grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes until they can be properly inspected. The two U.S. airlines that fly the planes, Alaska and United, have reported finding loose bolts on door plugs of other 737 Max 9 planes in recent days.
Homendy said investigators have not located the bolts from the torn-off door plug, but also don’t know if that’s what caused it to separate from the plane.
“We cannot tell you at this time how or why we do not have that information — we will have that information,” Homendy said. “It’s going to take time and we’re going to have to analyze the components and the door plug in our lab to be able to figure out how this happened and why this happened.”
Homendy said NTSB also plans to look at data on cabin pressure and other controls on the aircraft. Overall, the investigation could take between 12 and 18 months.