The FAA has temporarily grounded a fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets in response to a near-catastrophic failure on an Alaskan Airlines flight Friday evening.
In a statement passed on to X On Saturday, the regulator said it was requiring immediate inspections of certain jets before they could take to the skies again.
The urgent inspections affect about 171 aircraft in service worldwide, and the FAA said “safety will continue to guide our decision-making” as it supports an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
This comes after terrified passengers said they feared for their lives after an emergency exit serving as a cabin window was blown out of the Alaskan Airlines flight from Portland to California at 16,000 feet.
The FAA has temporarily grounded nearly all Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets in response to a near-catastrophic failure of an Alaskan Airlines flight Friday evening
The regulator announced the move in a tweet on Saturday
The FAA's decision to ground the Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet comes at a time when several airlines and regulators have taken similar steps.
Alaskan Airlines quickly implemented the move after Friday's near-disaster in Portland, and CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement that the planes will not be returned to the fleet until preventive maintenance procedures are completed, which he said is “in will be the case in the next few days.'
Other airlines are reportedly poised to make similar announcements.
According to Bloomberg, China's national aviation regulator is also ordering an emergency meeting to discuss grounding aircraft across the country.
According to aviation magazine The Air Current, the planes involved in the incident had been examined by officials just a day before the window shattered.
The outlet claimed that on January 4, an intermittent warning light appeared while taxiing to a terminal from a previous flight, prompting the airline to remove the aircraft from extended range operations (ETOPS). The warning reappeared on a separate flight later the same day.
The Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet involved in the incident had reportedly only entered service in November 2023 and was virtually new by aviation standards, having reportedly completed fewer than 200 flights before the incident.
Frightened passengers glimpsed the plane as it descended into turmoil and Emma Vu said she was asleep when she “felt the entire plane crashing”.
She took to TikTok after surviving the horrific near miss and revealed her panicked text messages to her family, saying: “The masks are down; I'm so scared right now; Please pray for me; Please, I don't want to die.'
“I was so scared at that moment,” Vu said.
“The masks fell and people screamed,” she continued, alongside a tearful selfie she took at the moment she feared could be her last.
Passenger Emma Vu said she “felt the entire plane go down” about 20 minutes into Friday night's terrifying Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, flying from Portland to California, before a cabin window 16,000 feet into the sky exploded
Vu revealed her final text messages to her family pleading “I don't want to die” and shared a selfie she took at the moment she feared could be her last
After being awakened by the blown window, Vu revealed the panicked text messages she sent to her family, telling them: “I don't want to die.”
“I'm so grateful for the ladies who sat next to me…they were kind enough to calm me down and the flight attendants gave oxygen tanks to those who needed it more,” she said.
“But I was freaked out because my sleeping bag wouldn't inflate – and that's literally what they tell you when it comes to safety: Don't worry, you'll still get airflow… when you're in a fight or are on the run.” “I’m not thinking about that.”
“It was just so scary, no one knew what was happening, the pilot came and told everyone to put their mask on before helping others – literally what they tell you in safety training.”
“A toddler had his shirt blown off and his phone flew out the window,” she added. “It was just so surreal.”
In audio recordings from the cockpit, the pilot could be heard calling for emergency help over the radio and saying: “Portland approach, Alaska 1282 emergency!” The aircraft is now leveling 12,000 in a left turn towards three, four, zero.
“We need a distraction.” We have declared an emergency. We are out of pressure. We have 177 passengers on board and a seal is…18,900', the pilot is heard explaining.
Another passenger, 20-year-old Elizabeth, told Oregon Live that the moment the window shattered, “it felt like my ears were popping, like they normally do on a plane, but ten times louder.” I couldn't believe it was real.'
“We were all calm,” she said of her fellow passenger, “but I felt like I was going to cry because who knows these could be my last moments.”
Another passenger, Kyle Rinker, 29, said the plane became “deadly quiet.” Nobody made a noise.'
26A, the seat next to the blown window, was reportedly unoccupied.
A photo shows the blown window. It is offered as a door on the plane. Alaska decided against this option, even though the frame of the future door was completely torn out by the hull damage
The Alaska plane returned to Portland Airport less than an hour after takeoff
The burst window was designed as an emergency exit, but the door was disabled by Boeing before delivery.
Therefore, from the inside it looks like a normal window seat, but from the outside the frame of the deactivated door remains visible. The torn out hull area fits perfectly with the door frame, suggesting possible structural failure.
According to Airline Reporter, the emergency exit doors are designed to open inward and cannot be pushed outward.
The National Safety Transport Board said it is investigating the incident and will provide any updates as they become available.
Boeing introduced its 737 Max in 2015 and has become one of the most widely used aircraft in the world since receiving certification from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in 2017.
A year later, the first crash occurred: In October 2018, a 737 Max from the Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 189 passengers.
A Lion Air Boeing 737-MAX crashed in Badung Bali in 2013 after overshooting the runway at Bali Ngurah Rai Airport
On March 11, 2019, the wreckage of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX aircraft is spotted
Five months later, in March 2019, a second 737 Max – this one operated by Ethiopian Airlines – crashed again shortly after takeoff, killing all 157 on board.
Three days later, the FAA grounded the planes.
It later emerged that Boeing employees had been cavalier about FAA regulations in internal communications and criticized the Max's design.
One said the plane was “designed by clowns who are in turn supervised by monkeys.”
The 737's design dates back to the 1960s and Boeing was criticized for putting large engines on an old airframe rather than using a “clean sheet design.”
Errors were discovered in the aircraft's MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System): in both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Air crashes, it was discovered that the MCAS had incorrectly pointed the nose down toward the ground and the pilots failed to override it could.
In 2021, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion in fines as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve allegations that the company concealed key information about the Max from regulators and the public .
Boeing spent billions overhauling the systems and the planes returned to global skies in fall 2020 after being grounded for 20 months – the longest such operation in aviation history.