The chairman of the United States’ National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) said it was “very, very fortunate” that a tragedy did not
materialise after part of the fuselage ripped out of an Alaska Airlines
Boeing 737 Max 9 on 5 January.
NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said the two seats next to the portion of fuselage that blew out were unoccupied.
“We are very, very fortunate that this didn’t end up in something
more tragic,” she added. Parts of the seat next to the fuselage,
including the head rest, were missing.
The aircraft had just left Portland, Oregon, en route to Ontario,
California, when the incident forced pilots to turn back and land safely
with all 171 passengers and six crew on board.
United Airlines and Alaska Airlines have the highest number of
scheduled flights out of the 11 airlines that operate the MAX 9. These
are Aeromexico, Air Tanzania, Alaska Airlines, Copa Airlines, Correndon
Dutch Airlines, flydubai, Icelandair, Lion Air, SCAT Airlines, Turkish
Airlines and United Airlines. Eight of these airlines operate scheduled
flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered immediate safety
inspections of more than 200 MAX 9 in service worldwide, while India's
aviation regulator has gone further by ordering inspections of all
Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.
Three Indian airlines, Air India Express, Akasa Air, and SpiceJet together operate more than 40 Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes.
In 2019, the crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX 8 which killed 189 people,
and an Ethiopian Airlines tragedy that resulted in the deaths of all 157
people on board, led to the grounding of the entire 737 Max fleet.
Aerospace design expert Sonya Brown told ABC Australia last week’s
737 MAX 9 incident involved a plug in an emergency exit while the 737
MAX 8 had an anti-stall system fault.
On X (Twitter), Alaska Airlines posted, “We deeply apologise to our
guests whose flights have been impacted. Guests with impacted travel can
go online to view flight options and rebook travel, place the value of
their ticket in their Mileage Plan Wallet for future use, or request a
refund.”