Boeing's 737 MAX 9 planes won't be returning to the skies anytime soon.
On Friday, a week after a panel exploded on an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 flight — creating a refrigerator-sized hole in the plane and rapidly depressurizing the cabin — the Federal Aviation Administration said the planes would remain grounded until Boeing provides appropriate data. Collection will take days.
The 737 MAX 9 planes are being “parked” at airport hubs, including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, while airlines await inspection instructions from Boeing. These instructions must be approved by the FAA. Boeing laid out a first round of plans earlier this week before withdrawing them the same day.
On Friday, the FAA said it was “encouraged by the comprehensive nature” of Boeing's instructions but would not approve the plans until it reviewed data from the first 40 inspections.
“We are working to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. “Our only concern is the safety of American travelers, and the Boeing 737-9 MAX will not return to the skies until we are fully satisfied that it is safe.”
In another sign that the fallout from the fuselage damage has not yet been resolved, airlines operating Boeing's 737 MAX 9 have warned, telling passengers to expect cancellations to continue into next week. Alaska and United Airlines, the only two U.S.-based airlines that operate the MAX 9, have canceled those flights through Tuesday.
More about Alaska Airlines and the Boeing 737 MAX 9
United estimated this would affect about 200 flights per day, while Alaska said it would be between 110 and 150 per day.
“Although the MAX 9 will not fly this weekend, our work continues,” United said in a statement to The Seattle Times. “As we have said before, these aircraft will not fly until they are approved and we are confident that they are 100% safe.”
Alaska has begun moving a portion of its fleet of 737 MAX 9 aircraft to “primary maintenance bases” to begin inspections as soon as the green light is given.
The door plug visits DC
The FAA grounded the 737 MAX 9 model last Saturday, a day after a piece of fuselage from Alaska Flight 1282 was blown up at 16,000 feet. The part that flew away was a door plug that filled a spot on the plane where an emergency exit was installed for airlines adding extra seats in the cabin.
United and Alaska do not use the slot and instead install a door stopper in the room.
If everything works, the connector will be held together with small clips on either side of the door frame. These brackets – called “stop fittings” – align with 12 similar stops on the door stopper. When the passenger cabin is pressurized, the stop pads press against the stop fittings and seal the door stopper.
To perform maintenance on the aircraft, the door plug can be moved up and out. To prevent this from happening when it shouldn't and the door stopper flying off, there are also four screws that secure the door stopper in place.
These bolts are currently the focus of the incident investigation being led by the National Transportation Safety Board.
After inspecting the aircraft and the 63-pound door plug, the NTSB concluded that the door plug was indeed moving up and that the four bolts designed to prevent it were either missing, misplaced or broken.
The door plug that tore off Flight 1282 was found near Portland shortly after the incident. It arrived on Friday at the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC. There, investigators will look for signs of what caused the blowout, including scratch marks that could indicate whether the bolts were in place.
A week full of examinations
In the week since the plane's fuselage exploded, regulators and lawmakers took action – particularly on Thursday and Friday.
The FAA announced Thursday morning that it is opening an investigation into Boeing's role in the incident to determine whether the company complied with regulations designed to ensure its planes are safe and built correctly.
Later that day, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sent a letter to the FAA demanding more information about the agency's oversight of Boeing, oversight that faced intense congressional scrutiny five years ago. after 346 people were killed in two MAX crashes.
Cantwell requested access to FAA quality system audit notices from the last 24 months related to Boeing and one of its suppliers, Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit, based in Wichita, Kansas, builds the entire fuselage of the 737 MAX 9 before sending it by train to Boeing's Renton plant.
On Friday morning, the FAA announced it would step up its monitoring and testing of Boeing's 737 MAX 9 production line as well as the company's parts suppliers. This is also being considered the use of an independent third party to oversee Boeing's inspection and quality control system.
“It is time to re-examine the delegation of authority and assess any associated security risks,” Whitaker said in a statement Friday morning. “The grounding of the 737-9 and the numerous production-related issues identified in recent years require us to explore all options to reduce risk.”
On Friday afternoon, the FAA said it would take some time before it approves the necessary inspection orders to get the planes back in the sky.
Boeing said Monday it expected to provide revised instructions, but four days later airlines had not received an update. On Friday afternoon, the FAA issued its order that the planes would remain grounded until it reviewed the data from the first round of inspections.
It is not clear how long these rounds will last.
“The safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning the Boeing 737-9 MAX to service,” the FAA said earlier this week.
Only the MAX 9 models that fill the spot with a door plug instead of an emergency exit need to be inspected.
Marc Scribner, a transportation policy analyst at the libertarian think tank Reason Foundation, is waiting for another form of data from Boeing. He is keeping an eye on the company's response to the FAA's investigative letter, which the company sent to Boeing executives on Thursday.
The FAA asked Boeing to respond to its letter within 10 business days with information about the “root cause” of the incident, details of service impacts and affected products, and information about any immediate and long-term actions to address the problem.
“In terms of substance [about] Where things are right now, we really need a root cause analysis,” Scribner said. “Because that will ultimately shape the discussion.”
“I cannot predict what will happen, but this is clearly a serious incident and the consequences could be far-reaching and long-lasting.”
Boeing has said it will cooperate fully and transparently with the NTSB and the FAA in both investigations. The company reiterated Friday that it would cooperate with the newly announced review.
“We welcome the FAA’s announcement,” Boeing said. “We support all measures that strengthen quality and safety and take measures throughout our entire production system.”