After the 737 MAX 9 flight accident, on January 7th local time, Boeing announced the cancellation of the annual leadership summit originally scheduled for January 8-9 and instead held a general meeting of all employees on safety issues.
On the evening of January 5th, shortly after taking off from Portland, Oregon, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, an emergency hatch suddenly detached from the fuselage, causing the cabin to momentarily lose pressure and make an emergency landing without causing any casualties.
On January 6th, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States ordered a temporary suspension of Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft operated by American airlines or within the United States for safety inspections.
Following the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States, the European Aviation Safety Agency has also taken measures to ground the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft. Türkiye Airlines, Mexico Airlines and Panama Airlines announced that they had grounded the aircraft.
On January 8th, Fiji Airlines announced that the temporary suspension of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 had no impact on the company's fleet, which operates the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.
On January 7th, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) announced that it had adopted an emergency airworthiness directive from the US regarding the Boeing 737 MAX 9, requiring airlines to ground and inspect aircraft of this type. However, EASA also stated that the configuration of the 737 MAX 9 operated by European airlines is different from that of the accident aircraft.
According to the China Securities News, the configuration of the 737 MAX 9 aircraft involved is replaced by an embedded panel at the middle cabin entrance and exit, and the cabin door is no different from the regular cabin wall from the inside. This design is usually applied to flights with low passenger capacity, as they do not require additional exits to meet evacuation requirements. Therefore, this accident was not caused by passengers accidentally touching others on the flight, but rather by problems that occurred during the production and installation process.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said, "Given the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 incident, we will cancel the summit to focus on providing support to the airline, cooperating with the ongoing investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Commission, and providing support to any of our airline's customer fleets affected."
According to flight manager data, currently all 737 MAX aircraft operated by domestic airlines are MAX 8, and there are currently no MAX 9 aircraft.
Flight management data shows that on January 13, 2023, the Boeing 737 MAX model resumed commercial operation, and by November 2023, all 95 Boeing 737 MAX fleets of domestic airlines in China had resumed operations. The reporter found that as of November 30, 2023, there are still 4526 737 MAX aircraft worldwide that have not been delivered, of which 118 are from Chinese airlines.