Passengers on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 are suing Boeing after a door-like panel on the Boeing 737 Max 9 came loose mid-flight, causing a rapid loss of pressure in the cabin, their lawyers said in a news release.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a Seattle court, names six passengers and a family member as plaintiffs. It said the incident resulted in physical injuries, including a concussion, bruises, difficulty breathing and bleeding ears, as well as emotional trauma. It is also claimed that many of the oxygen masks on the plane appeared to be inoperable. Boeing declined to comment.
“This nightmarish experience has caused economic, physical and lasting emotional consequences that have understandably deeply affected our clients,” Daniel Laurence, an attorney with the law firm Stritmater Kessler Koehler Moore, said in a statement. He cited Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun's “frank admission that this terrible event was caused by Boeing's 'mistakes'” as the catalyst for the proposed class action lawsuit. Calhoun told employees during a company meeting Tuesday: “We're going to approach this No. 1 and admit our mistake,” the Washington Post reported.
The Jan. 5 incident on the flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground some Boeing 737 Max 9 planes as part of its investigation. This week, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines said they found loose hardware on the same sections of the same type of aircraft in their fleets. The FAA has stated that “the safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning the Boeing 737-9 Max to service.”