FAA Scolds Boeing Over Door Plug Decompression Incident

The agency says the emergency situation "should have never happened."

Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 03:21 PM ET

Verified

The FAA is investigating an incident in which an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 lost a door plug in flight. [Courtesy: NTSB]

Key Takeaways:

The FAA has launched a formal investigation into Boeing following a January 5 incident where an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 lost a door plug mid-flight, leading to rapid decompression and an emergency landing.
The incident prompted the FAA to ground all Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft nationwide, causing widespread flight cancellations and delays.
The investigation seeks to determine if Boeing failed to ensure its products conformed to approved designs and were safe for operation, citing "additional discrepancies on other Boeing 737-9 airplanes."
The FAA emphasized that safety, not speed, will dictate the timeline for returning the aircraft to service, stressing that Boeing's manufacturing practices must comply with high safety standards.

See a mistake? Contact us.

“This incident should have never happened, and it cannot happen again.”

Those words come from a statement from the FAA, which announced Thursday that it has formally notified Boeing that it is conducting “an investigation to determine if [the company] failed to ensure completed products conformed to its approved design and were in a condition for safe operation in compliance with FAA regulations.”