United Airlines discovers loose bolts on its Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes after Alaska Airlines incident
An airline has made a chilling discovery on board a Boeing aircraft, just days after Alaska Airlines was forced into an emergency landing.
Amid growing headaches for airline manufacturer Boeing, a number of loose bolts has been found by carrier United Airlines just days after an Alaska Airlines plane of the same model lost a door plug mid-air.
According to reports, America’s United Airlines said in a statement they had found loose bolts and other “installation issues” on a part of some Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets. The discovery was made after extensive inspections of aircraft after a mid-flight blowout on a similar Alaska Airlines jet on Friday.
In a statement obtained by FOX Business, United explained that its Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft will be suspended as a result of the discovery. The airline said their 200 MAX 9 flights are also cancelled.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” the company explained. “These findings will be remedied by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.”
Alaska Airlines also acknowledged encountering “loose” materials in a statement on its inspections on Monday night.
“As our maintenance technicians began preparing our 737-9 MAX fleet for inspections, they accessed the area in question. Initial reports from our technicians indicate some loose hardware was visible on some aircraft,” the statement read.
On Friday, Alaska Air Flight 1282 was forced to make an emergency landing after a door plug blew out in the middle of its flight, leaving a fridge-sized hole in the cabin.
The flight was around 16,000 feet in the air when the door plug blew off, en route to Ontario, California from Portland, Oregon. The cabin experienced depressurisation, prompting the pilots to make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport.
Alaska Airlines reported that no one was seriously injured in the incident. 171 passengers were on board.
On Saturday, the FAA directed airlines operating worldwide to conduct safety inspections of their 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft. The only U.S. carriers that operate the model are Alaska and United.
“As operators conduct the required inspections, we are staying in close contact with them and will help address any and all findings,” Boeing said in a statement to FOX Business on Monday. “We are committed to ensuring every Boeing aeroplane meets design specifications and the highest safety and quality standards.”
“We regret the impact this has had on our customers and their passengers,” the company added.
The door plugs are inserted where emergency exit doors would be located on Max 9s with more than about 200 seats. Alaska and United have fewer seats in their Max 9s, so they replace heavy doors with the plugs, as reported by Associated Press.
Boeing, which has had problems with various planes over the years — including a global grounding of their MAX 8 aircraft following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 — pledged to “help address any and all findings” that airlines make during their inspections of Max 9 jets.
The MAX 9 is the newest version of Boeing’s 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane that debuted in the late 1960s and has been updated many times.
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