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The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX door explosion was not what many expected to happen in the first week of 2024. However, inspections and investigations after the incident revealed further manufacturing defects at Boeing, raising concerns about safety and quality control at major manufacturers.
Since the Alaska Airlines accident, 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft have been grounded for nearly three weeks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation into the aircraft manufacturer’s production practices, Alaska Airlines has stepped up its scrutiny of Boeing, a major supplier has come under fire, and Boeing is on fire mode, taking ” We have taken immediate action.”
Boeing and Alaska Airlines are currently considering litigation, while Boeing’s customers are considering business plans without some of the aircraft.
inside the plane
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer L. Homendy said at a press conference that confusion was the overriding theme for the 171 passengers and six crew members aboard Alaska Airlines Flight AS1282, which experienced the explosion. Ta.
The sudden depressurization caused the cockpit door at the front of the aircraft to explode open. The pilots were not aware that this could happen. Additionally, the pilots had trouble communicating clearly with air traffic controllers who were trying to get the plane safely to the airport.
As NTSB Chair Jennifer L. Homendy confirmed, a complete understanding of cockpit events remains complicated because cockpit voice recorders overwrite themselves before being captured.
Further inside the cabin, a door exploded, according to a lawsuit filed by four passengers against Boeing, “striking their noise-canceling Beats headphones and Apple AirPods, enough to harm the passengers’ ears.” “It was the sound of an impact,” a passenger reported. By Al Jazeera. The suit says the explosion caused “fear, distress, anxiety, trauma, physical pain, and other injuries.”
Like the pilots, the flight attendants struggled to communicate with each other and understand the situation, including the damage, the Washington Post reported.
Eventually, the stress levels in the cabin increased, causing passengers to believe that the situation “foreshadowed the destruction of the plane and the possibility of their own death,” according to the complaint.
TikTok user @imsocorny, who was sitting near the front of AS1282, described the explosion in a now-unreleased video as a “huge jolt, shock, and hissing sound.”
This was followed by a commotion towards the rear of the plane where the explosion occurred. However, it was not clear what was happening as the oxygen masks fell off and frightened passengers tried to grab them to block their view. This led passengers to believe that the plane was about to begin a steep descent.
The Seattle Times reported, citing a whistleblower, that the blown door plug was removed from the plane for repairs and then improperly reattached.
lawsuit
As a result of the incident, four passengers filed a lawsuit against Boeing and Alaska Airlines on January 16th. The plaintiffs are seeking “compensation for damages caused by personal injuries sustained during boarding Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on January 5, 2024,” attorney Mark Lindquist told Al Jazeera.
Lindquist has previously represented dozens of families of victims of Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
At the time, these families and Lindquist were hopeful that “Boeing has learned lessons from the MAX 8 crashes and improved its quality control.” But Lindquist said the latest cases against the U.S. manufacturer “demonstrate that Boeing still has serious and dangerous quality control problems that need to be resolved.”
Lindquist said the Alaska Airlines door explosion was an “extreme and life-threatening incident” and that it was unfortunate that no one was killed.
Since Lindquist filed the lawsuit on behalf of the four passengers, 14 more passengers have contacted him seeking representation. Lindquist added that at some point he will likely file an amended complaint with new customers and new information.
Lindquist said more law firms will be involved in lawsuits against Boeing and Alaska Airlines to hold them accountable and “make sure this never happens to anyone again.” He said he expected that.
Boeing did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Impact on Boeing customers
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are the major airlines affected by the 737-9 MAX grounding. To make matters worse, this pair are the two largest operators of this variant.
Nevertheless, their experiences with grounding were different. Alaska has 65 737-9 MAXs, compared to United’s 79. However, Alaska Airlines’ overall percentage of canceled flights is high, as the 737-9 MAX makes up 20 percent of its fleet. For United Airlines, the 737-9 MAX is only 8% based on fleet data from planespotters.net.
United Airlines said in a filing that it will post an adjusted loss of 35 cents to 85 cents per share in the first quarter of 2024. These results follow the grounding of the 737 MAX. Alaska Airlines, meanwhile, expects the ordeal to cost $150 million.
“The 65 planes make up about 20 percent of the company’s fleet,” said Scott Hamilton, founder and managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Company. % cannot be deleted.”
Such frustration over the grounding has caused executives at both airlines to reconsider their future aircraft choices.
Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC News that there are still plans to order the 737-10, the largest aircraft in the MAX family, but plans to decide on the configuration will be made only after certification. He said it would be. The timeline for approval of the 737-10 is unknown.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby similarly told CNBC that United Airlines is “Boeing’s largest customer in the world” and that “we need Boeing to be successful.” . However, they plan to not deploy the 737-10 for a considerable period of time.
Inside United, the best-case scenario is that the 737-10 will be delayed for more than five years. To deal with these delays for United Airlines, that would probably mean changing the order book so there would be an alternative of airplanes instead of MAX 10 for the next few years, which would also mean the company wouldn’t grow as fast. According to the CEO.
An opportunity for Airbus?
As dissatisfaction with Boeing grows, the question is whether industry rival Airbus can use it to grab some of its business.
Mr Hamilton warned: “Things are not that simple. On the contrary, Airbus will struggle to capitalize on its success.”
“The A320 line is sold out through 2030, and sales will continue beyond 2030. Even if an airline came knocking today, Airbus would not be able to supply large numbers of new planes,” Hamilton said. Ta.
So no matter how frustrated these airlines are with quality issues, they may have no real choice but to stick with Boeing.
“If airlines want a 737-sized airplane in this decade, they’re basically going to have to stick with Boeing, whether they want to or not,” Hamilton said.
Richard Aboulafia, managing director of Aerodynamic Advisory, said Airbus’ backlog and Boeing’s current situation means that despite the quality of the aircraft, companies looking to order aircraft are stuck with Boeing, at least to some degree. He said that it means that. He added: “It’s also possible that Boeing’s management simply didn’t care. They may have thought that Airbus was quickly gaining ground but was beyond their time horizon. I don’t know.”
But he said recent problems greatly jeopardize the cynical calculations predicted by management.
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