Boeing will be back in the hot seat Tuesday as the National Transportation Safety Board holds a hearing to present its findings from an investigation into the terrifying incident in which a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max.
The incident occurred in January 2025 on a flight from Portland, Oregon, when minutes after takeoff the door plug blew out the side of the plane at about 16,000 feet. It ripped away passengers’ clothing and phones, sending the items hurtling out of the plane — but remarkably, there were no serious injuries on a flight that could easily haveturned into a tragedy.
The NTSB’s preliminary findingsrevealed that four bolts that were supposed to hold the door plug in place on the Boeing 737 Max were missing when the plane was delivered to Alaska Air in October 2023.
What has not been revealed is who exactly was responsible for leaving the bolts off the door plug during the manufacturing process.
Boeing told investigators that there wasno internal paperworkshowing that the door plug had been removed and then put back in place without the bolts, so workers who were moving the plane along the production line were not aware it needed to have the bolts reattached.
Boeing employees said in interviews with investigators they felt pressure to work too fast to avoid mistakes.
The NTSB hearing Tuesday comes at a fraught time for Boeing, which is now part of an investigation into the fatalcrash of a 787 Dreamliner operated by Air Indiathis month.
While there is no indication yet that Boeing’s work caused the crash of the nearly 11-year-old plane, confidence in Boeing could suffer further if the company is found to be even partly at fault. And Boeing has little reputation left to lose, after two fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, respectively, were traced back to design and software errors, and the Alaska Air incident.
The complete final report on the Alaska Air incident from the NTSB will be available in a few weeks.