FAA grounds 737 Max 9 Aircraft Indefinitely after Alaska Airlines incident

[jrfsp]

Alaska has found further aircraft with issues during the inspections "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. "

Information about Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 and our 737-9 MAX fleet - Alaska Airlines News

Latest updates & information can be found here.

news.alaskaair.com

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Boeing share price down over 12% last night (about $US20b, just gone out the window plughole…)

Fixed that for you…

 

[Tropic]

If it's a Boeing (max family), I definitely ain't going...!

 

[openseat]

Had no idea that the coughpit door could fly open like that. I can see why the Pilots on the comms sounded a bit stressed.

If they lost headsets into the cabin, door flew open, I’d imagine they were thinking something pretty catastrophic had gone on, life is at risk, explains the first comms from the crew which sounded pretty desperate.

I had wondered the same. Obviously this explains the situation.

 

[DejaBrew]

Indonesia has now followed suit in grounding all MAX 9 aircraft operated by Lion Air…

Indonesia temporarily grounds three Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes operated by Lion Air

JAKARTA: Indonesia temporarily grounded three Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes on Jan 6, operated by Lion Air, despite different configurations from the plane that had to make an emergency landing in the US last week, the transport ministry said on Monday (Jan 8). The US Federal Aviation Administration...

www.channelnewsasia.com

 

[jb747]

I find it interesting (and so lucky) that the plug blew out so early in the flight, at 16000ft. Normal inside pressure is about 80% of 1 atmosphere (although I don't know how quickly pressure is bled out... I presume it's slowed for passenger comfort), outside pressure at 16000ft about 55%, so not a really big difference (iff cabin pressure was down to normal). Compared to what it had frequently been (outside pressure 23% of 1 atm at 36000ft.). Plug might have been really on the edge after the last flight. Heavy landing?
Not an armchair expert, just musing.

The cabin will climb at 300-400 fpm. At 16,000', it won't just be a percentage of that altitude though. The profiles are smarter than that. If you're not going above about FL220, the cabin may actually stay at sea level. In this case, I think you'll find the cabin would have been at about 3,000' or so, so a fairly substantial differential.

NTSB advised not long ago that the coughpit door blew open, pilots had headsets thrown off them, ended up in First Class, and the checklists got pulled out the door into the cabin also.

Had no idea that the coughpit door could fly open like that. I can see why the Pilots on the comms sounded a bit stressed.

It shouldn't and if it did, that's another black mark. The door should be more than secure enough to hold that level of differential, and they are supposed to have pressurisation blow out panels. Perhaps they bolted them closed.

Yes - seems those coughpit doors aren't as secure as we thought, if that happens during a decompression event. Obviously, they should be pretty effective at keeping intruders out, but I wonder what mode of failure or condition would need to exist for that to happen?

This should not be a mode of failure at all!

Loose bolts found on some United Airlines MAX-9's during mandated inspections

If they now start looking seriously, I wonder which other spots will also have loose bolts.

 

[Saab34]

Loose bolts…doors flying open…

JB, surely Airbus isn’t this clean? Or am I right in thinking this MAX is just beyond what it’s meant to be?

You really do wonder what else will pop up. MAX10 is next up!

 

[jb747]

JB, surely Airbus isn’t this clean? Or am I right in thinking this MAX is just beyond what it’s meant to be?

I really don’t think you can compare Airbus and Boeing any more. Boeing was a great aerospace company, but now it seems my milk delivery guy could do a better job. And it’s not just the Max. They’re having major, ongoing issues with multiple aircraft (I mean how hard could it be to make a 767 tanker), and their spaceship will be lucky to fly at all. Their last great machine was the 777.

On the other hand, Airbus don’t seem to be much chop when it comes to helicopters.

 

[p--and--t]

Airbus don’t seem to be much chop when it comes to helicopters.

I see what you did there

 

[Quickstatus]

And I cant see how the finder can unlock the phone to take it out of airplane mode

The bloke who found it said it was not locked

 

[flyer89]

Their last great machine was the 777.

It’s amazing to think it will celebrate its 30th birthday next year…..

 

[lovestotravel]

Their last great machine was the 777.

Yep - I smile when I get onboard a 7777-300ER, yes it's loud but it's a great machine that just works, then again I grew up flying around in 727's with Dad

787
737 Max
777x

Nothing great about those

Post automatically merged: Jan 9, 2024

It’s amazing to think it will celebrate its 30th birthday next year…..

777-300ER first flight - 24 February 2003

 

[Quickstatus]

It shouldn't and if it did, that's another black mark.

NTSB Chair now saying the coughpit door is designed to open in rapid decompression but Boeing did not mention this in the operating manual and so the pilots nor the airline were aware of this.
.....

 

[JohnM]

NTSB Chair now saying the coughpit door is designed to open in rapid decompression but Boeing did not mention this in the operating manual and so the pilots nor the airline were aware of this.
.....

Shades of MCAS?

 

[jb747]

NTSB Chair now saying the coughpit door is designed to open in rapid decompression but Boeing did not mention this in the operating manual and so the pilots nor the airline were aware of this.
.....

I can see a reason for it to UNLOCK, but that's entirely different to opening.

 

[eastwest101]

NTSB Chair now saying the coughpit door is designed to open in rapid decompression but Boeing did not mention this in the operating manual and so the pilots nor the airline were aware of this.
.....

Have we had a survivable sudden cabin decompression in a B737 of any variety post 9/11 reinforcement of flight deck doors? I would have thought this door architecture is unchanged from the previous NG variants? Or do the newer -Max variants have different flight deck doors?

 

[Scarlett]

I really don’t think you can compare Airbus and Boeing any more. Boeing was a great aerospace company, but now it seems my milk delivery guy could do a better job. And it’s not just the Max. They’re having major, ongoing issues with multiple aircraft (I mean how hard could it be to make a 767 tanker), and their spaceship will be lucky to fly at all. Their last great machine was the 777.

On the other hand, Airbus don’t seem to be much chop when it comes to helicopters.

This really does seem like the decisions of the Boeing C-suite for the last 20, maybe even 25 years, being realised.

All company executives have a responsibility to trim waste and inefficiency from their processes, that’s normal. However Boeing appears to have taken their cost cutting to levels that have affected the core reliability of their modern products.

 

[jb747]

Have we had a survivable sudden cabin decompression in a B737 of any variety post 9/11 reinforcement of flight deck doors? I would have thought this door architecture is unchanged from the previous NG variants? Or do the newer -Max variants have different flight deck doors?

Rapid, bordering on explosive, decompressions are fortunately very rare. For the maximum in force, you'd need both a large differential, and hole. Holes in the square metre and up sizing are extremely rare (and possibly not survivable in most cases). If the door has depressurisation panels then it shouldn't matter. If the door simply unlocked in a depressurisation, then it should have done so in the Helios case, which it didn't.

Since 2000 there have only been a handful that weren't a consequence of the aircraft being shot down or otherwise breaking up. It would appear that mine actually involved the biggest hole, but then it was a big aircraft. Scale matters. Curiously, one airline accounts for a large percentage of these events. Southwest.

 

[Quickstatus]

The only other bigger hole with aircraft survival that I'm aware of is Aloha Airlines 737 back in 1988 when part of the roof peeled off.

 

[cove]

There is quite a bit of travel chaos with so many planes grounded.