Boeing 737 Max 9 planes that have passed a new inspection process will be permitted to fly again, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has announced.
Almost 200 aircraft were grounded in early January following a mid-air emergency on an Alaska Airlines flight.
On 5 January, a flight leaving Portland, Oregon had to make an emergency landing after part of the plane — known as a door plug or a fuselage plug — flew off, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the aircraft.
I get why you’d do that for the flight control stuff, but is there a reason to think that the loose-bolts/side-falling-off thing is specific to this plane? It seems like any new Boeing plane would be vulnerable to the same process failures.
I guess they are 3/4 of the planes Boeing delivers, and the only ones likely to be used short haul.
nope. im still more afraid of the thing that took 2 fully loaded planes down. and i agree. that boeing has clearly lost all qc is kinda terrifying.
Right after this post I ended up reading the whistleblower thread. If you haven’t read it, it’s amazing:
https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installation-inspection-procedure-at-boeing/#comment-509962
Their manufacturing is suspect on anything new, but also the max line has several fundamental problems outside of this that have not truly been addressed.
At least for 737 the Max 9 is the only one long enough to have this extra door/plug option. None of the others are long enough to need it in any configuration, so there simply isn’t a hole in the plane for anything except this one (or its previous generation, the 17 year old 737-900ER, which they’re also checking just to be sure)