On January 4, 2024, a door plug blew out on aBoeing 737 Maxat more than 16,000 feet in the air, leaving a gaping hole in the side. On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board will hear the investigation’s findings and vote on the probable cause of the incident was.
The findings could put to rest one of the biggest questions around the terrifying incident: Who is to blame?
The hearing comes at a fraught time for Boeing, as well, which is now the focus of 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 unless it is cleared as the cause. And after two fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, respectively, were traced back to design and software errors, and the Alaska Air door plug incident was caused by the jet being delivered to the airline by the embattled aircraft maker without the four bolts needed to hold it in place, Boeing had little reputation left to lose.
In the January 2024 door plug blowout, passengers’ clothing and phones were ripped away and sent hurtling out of the plane, and the missing piece from Alaska Air flight 1282 was later found in an Oregon backyard. Through a combination of crew skill and luck, with no one seated next to the hole, it could easily haveturned into a tragedy.
In the NTSB’s preliminary findings,it was revealed that four bolts that hold the door plug in place on the Boeing 737 Max were missing at the time of the plane’s delivery to Alaska Air in October 2023. The plane made 153 flights over 10 weeks before the incident, including 22 flights between Hawaii and the mainland. Had the incident occurred over the Pacific at 35,000 feet rather than minutes after taking off from Portland airport, it could have led to the loss of the plane.
What has not been revealed is who exactly was responsible for leaving the bolts off the door plug during the manufacturing process. Boeing revealed 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.
The NTSB already held afact finding hearinginto the incident in August, where it revealed interviews with Boeing employees who said they felt pressure to work too fast to avoid mistakes.
A Boeing employee, identified as a Door Master Lead, told investigators that much of the assembly work needed to be redone because of the later discovery of problems, as happened with the door plug that was removed to fix some rivets.
The worker said there was no special training to open, close or remove a door plug versus a regular door. The worker’s team was“put in uncharted waters to where… we were replacing doors like we were replacing our underwear.”
As a result of the incident the Federal Aviation Administration announced additional oversight of Boeing and limits on its production levels. The aircraft maker only recently returned to the production level for the 737 Max that it planned ahead of the incident.
Boeing said it has taken its own steps to improve the quality and safety of its planes, and it replaced the CEO at the time of the incident, Dave Calhoun. And last month the Justice Departmentdropped criminal chargesit had planned against Boeing for defrauding the FAA during the certification process for the Max ahead of two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
The complete final report on the Alaska Air incident from the NTSB will be available in a few weeks.