The announcement is worrying. This Monday, three days after the loss of a door on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX-9 in mid-flight, the American airlines United Airlines and Alaska Airlines announced that during checks they had discovered poorly screwed bolts of the same type on the defective doors of their devices , the same as the one that was torn from the plane, which was at an altitude of almost 5,000 m, on Friday shortly after take-off from Portland, Oregon, with 171 passengers and 6 crew members on board. United has the largest fleet of 737 MAX 9s with 79 aircraft, all of which are currently grounded while they undergo an inspection ordered by the US Civil Aviation Administration (FAA). A total of 171 aircraft of this model are on the ground for inspection, a decision that also affects companies such as Turkish Airlines and Aeromexico.
“Since we began inspections on Saturday, we have made discoveries that appear to be related to problems with the installation of the panel blocking the doors,” the company said in a statement sent to AFP. “For example, screws that needed to be tightened. »
Alaska Airlines also announced that after preliminary inspections it had discovered “loose equipment” on some of its aircraft of this type.
Locking certain doors is a configuration that Boeing offers to its customers when the number of existing emergency exits is already sufficient in relation to the number of seats on the aircraft. In addition to the 737 MAX 9, this device already exists on other Boeing models, in particular the 737-900ER, which was launched in 2006 and which has not experienced similar incidents since then. For each aircraft inspected, United said it removed the panel concealing the door, removed two rows of seats, checked the attachment points, opened the door and took any corrective action before replacing all elements.
Also on Monday, Aeromexico said it was in the “final stages of a detailed inspection” and expected to return its 19 MAX-9s to service “in the coming days.”
The door fell into a garden
As a reminder: On Friday evening, a door on a Boeing 737-9 came off during an Alaska Airlines flight. The aircraft, which had just taken off from Portland (Oregon) with 171 passengers and 6 crew members on board, was at an altitude of almost 5,000 m at the time. The investigation by the American traffic safety authority NTSB has only just begun and no conclusions have been drawn yet. The spectacular images of the incident, which left only minor injuries and showed a gaping hole in the sky, went around the world. The agency announced Sunday evening that it had found the lost door panel that fell into a person's backyard in Portland.
This incident joins a long list of setbacks for the 737 MAX, which began with the crashes of two 737 MAX-8s in October 2018 in Indonesia and March 2019 in Ethiopia, which killed a total of 346 people. Following these disasters, all 737 MAXs were grounded for 20 months related to the MCAS pilot software. More recently, it was the 737 MAX that once again made headlines after faulty workmanship was discovered in the plane's rear waterproof bulkhead in the fall and the risk of a loose screw on the rudder control system was identified in December.
In the case of last Friday's incident, the loosening of the door could be related to the manufacturing of the door or the screws, but also to the installation and quality control, explains Scott Hamilton of the trade site Leeham News.
(With AFP)
A cell phone fell out of the plane and is working
Almost 5,000 meters of fall and a device that works: the story of this miraculous cell phone, which fell from the cabin of the Alaska Airlines Boeing in mid-flight in the United States on Friday, will annoy everyone who has broken their cell phone with a simple one Hit their tiles.
An Internet user reported on Sunday about luggage.
“Still in airplane mode, with half-full battery,” wrote Seanathan Bates. In a picture we see that the screen works without any problems, the tip of the charging cable is torn off.
” Thank you for your help! »Wrote on Monday on the same network the head of the American Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Jennifer Homendy, who is investigating the incident. “I would really like to get to know you.”