LIVE: NTSB determining probable cause of Alaska Airlines door plug blowout
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday that the heroic actions of the crew aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 ensured everyone survived the terrifying incident last year when a door plug panel flew off the plane shortly after takeoff.
But Homendy said "the crew shouldn’t have had to be heroes, because this accident never should have happened." She noted that it wouldn’t have if Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration had done enough to ensure the safety of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
An NTSB investigation over the past 17 months found that bolts securing what is known as the door plug panel were removed and never replaced during a repair.
Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems — the company that made and installed the door plug — are redesigning them with another backup system to keep the panels in place even if the bolts are missing, but that improvement isn’t likely to be certified by the FAA until 2026 at the soonest.
And the NTSB has found bigger problems.
"An accident like this only happens when there are multiple system failures," Homendy said.
Both Boeing and the FAA have improved training and processes since the incident, according to the NTSB, but board officials said both organizations need to better identify manufacturing risks to make sure such flaws never sneak through again. Homendy did single out Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, for improving safety since he took over last summer, though she said more needs to be done.
The NTSB is expected to approve several recommendations at Tuesday's meeting. It already highlighted how Boeing needs to ensure that everyone throughout the company understands its safety plan as well as executives do.
The FAA must also step up to make sure its audits and inspections focus on key areas based on past problems, according to the safety board.
The blowout aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 occurred minutes after it took off from Portland, Oregon, and created a roaring air vacuum that sucked objects out of the cabin and scattered them on the ground below along with debris from the fuselage. Seven passengers and one flight attendant sustained minor injuries, but no one was killed. Pilots were able to land the plane safely back at the airport.
The backstory:
On January, 5, 2024, a Boeing 737-9 plane took off from Portland International Airport with 174 passengers and six crew members on board on its way to Ontario, California when it had to make an emergency landing back in Portland after a door plug blowout.
The Alaska flight climbed to 16,000 feet before turning around, flight data showed.
The NTSB released these images of investigators inspecting the door plug and the aircraft. (NTSB)
A passenger on the plane told KPTV FOX 12 in Oregon he heard a "really loud bang" just as the plane reached cruising altitude, prompting the oxygen masks to drop.
The following day, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes for immediate inspections. Alaska Airlines then took more than 60 Max 9's out of service for safety inspections.
Plane window blows out mid-flight in Portland
An Alaska Airlines flight from Portland to Ontario, California had to make an emergency landing back in Portland after a window on the plane blew out mid-flight, according to KPTV FOX 12 in Oregon.
In April 2024, Alaska Airlines said Boeing had paid the carrier $160 million in "initial compensation" for a panel that blew out of an Alaska Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliner in January.
The payment covered Alaska's pretax loss related to the accident, including lost revenue and the cost of returning its Max 9 fleet to service after the planes were grounded for three weeks.
The Source: Information in this story came from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Associated Press and original reporting by FOX 13 Seattle.
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