Social media posts showed oxygen masks deployed and a portion of the aircraft’s side wall missing.
A section of the fuselage reserved for the optional door had vanished, leaving a neat door-shaped gap. The seat next to the panel, which contained an ordinary window, had been unoccupied.
Emma Vu, a passenger on the Alaska flight, told CNN she awoke to the plane “just falling, and I knew it was not just normal turbulence because the masks came down and that’s when the panic definitely started to set in”.
The extra door is typically installed by low-cost airlines using extra seats that require more paths for evacuation. However, those doors are permanently “plugged”, or deactivated, on jets with fewer seats, including those of Alaska Airlines.
The fuselage for Boeing 737s is made by Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems, which separated from Boeing in 2005. Spirit manufactured and installed the particular plug door that suffered the blowout, a source told Reuters on Saturday. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The FAA said its inspection directive covers 171 MAX 9 aeroplanes but did not say how many planes need new inspections or what the precise inspection requirements are.
The MAX 9 represents about 220 of the 1,400 MAX jets delivered so far and most of them have the deactivated door, meaning they are potentially covered by the order.
Boeing said it supported the FAA decision.
Some foreign regulators, including China, sought details on the incident, a person familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg reported earlier that China, the first country to ground MAX flights in 2019, was considering whether to take action.
MAX planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months following the crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia linked to poorly designed cockpit software.
Source: CNA
