The door is gone. On the afternoon of January 5th local time, an emergency hatch of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines fell off and made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff. The next day, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States issued a flight ban on Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft operating within the United States, affecting approximately 171 aircraft.
One wave has not yet subsided, and another wave has risen again. A few days after the accident, both United Airlines and Alaska Airlines reported discovering parts issues on the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft. On the 8th, Boeing's stock price significantly declined on the same day, closing down 8.03%. On the 9th, the closing price continued to decline.
Southern Metropolis and N Video reporters have found that from 2018 to 2019, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft had two consecutive air accidents. Subsequently, the Boeing 737 MAX model was temporarily banned from flying in many parts of the world. In years of investigation, various parties have gradually discovered that Boeing has various "bizarre" operations such as "self evaluating oneself" and allowing pilots to learn how to operate their tablets. At the same time, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which has undergone a go around, is still experiencing frequent accidents worldwide, and Boeing is becoming increasingly embroiled in the public opinion storm.
Sudden accident: Cabin door falling during flight
On the afternoon of January 5th local time, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 suddenly made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. The photos taken by the flight passengers inside the cabin show that a large part of the aircraft's fuselage and a window are missing, and the oxygen mask has come off.
On January 5, 2024 local time, a Boeing 737MAX9 aircraft in the United States experienced an emergency hatch drop during flight.
The US media was the first to disclose that the dropped component was the rear emergency escape hatch.
Pain, fear, shock... The sudden drop of the emergency cabin door caused the cabin to instantly lose pressure, and some passengers screamed and cried. A mother and son sitting near the cabin door had their shirt torn by the strong wind, and their clothes were immediately sucked out of the cabin door. Some passengers have their phones sucked out of the cabin. According to the crew's description, a very strong explosion occurred during the accident.
The aircraft model carrying this flight mission is the Boeing 737 MAX 9.
On the day of the incident, Boeing publicly stated that it had taken note of the incident involving Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 and was working to gather more information and contact the airline. The Boeing technical team is ready to support the investigation at any time.
The Federal Aviation Administration of the United States has made a more decisive decision. The day after the incident, the agency ordered a temporary suspension of Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft operated by American airlines or within the United States to conduct safety checks on the aircraft. This emergency airworthiness directive will affect approximately 171 aircraft.
According to statistics, up to now, Boeing has delivered 218 737 MAX 9 aircraft in the world, most of which are in service with Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, and a few are operated by Icelandic Airlines, Türkiye Airlines, etc.
After this directive was issued, Alaska Airlines cancelled 170 flights on the 7th, affecting nearly 25000 passengers, and it is expected that a large number of flights will be cancelled in the coming days.
The shock wave of the "grounded order" has spread, and multiple airlines around the world have also responded and conducted safety inspections on this aircraft model. United Airlines cancelled about 60 flights on the 6th, grounded 46 Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, and completed safety checks on 33 of them; Türkiye Airlines, Mexico Airlines and Panama Airlines also announced the grounding of this aircraft.
European regulatory agencies have also taken action. On the 7th local time, the European Aviation Safety Agency ordered a temporary suspension and inspection of Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft; The British aviation safety regulatory agency also requires that the operator of this aircraft type comply with the Federal Aviation Administration's grounding and inspection instructions before entering British airspace.
After the incident attracted global attention, the National Transportation Safety Commission of the United States held a press conference on the evening of the 7th local time. Jennifer Hormendy, the chairman of the conference, stated that there were no passengers sitting on seats 26A and 26B next to the fallen cabin door. Although the fuselage components of the aircraft involved fell from the air, she still emphasized that "the structure of the aircraft involved was not damaged.".
At the same time, the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States revealed that the two "black boxes" of the aircraft involved have been found. But when the cockpit voice recorder in the "black box" was retrieved by search personnel, the data related to emergency landing had been overwritten by new data.
Even more ironically, this emergency hatch was ultimately discovered in the backyard of a high school teacher's house through the joint efforts of a group of enthusiastic residents.
The cabin door of the Alaska Airlines passenger plane where the accident occurred was found.
The Southern Metropolitan Daily reporter noticed that on January 8th local time, Boeing issued a statement regarding the inspection of the 737 MAX 9 aircraft, stating that while users were conducting the inspection, the company was maintaining close contact with them and will assist in addressing the issues discovered.
On the 9th local time, Boeing held a safety meeting for all employees. In response to this accident, Boeing CEO David Calhoun stated that Boeing must first acknowledge its mistakes and will handle this issue in a completely transparent manner.
He revealed that Boeing will cooperate with the National Transportation Safety Commission of the United States, which is investigating the accident, to identify the cause of the accident and work with the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure appropriate inspections of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft.
However, after multiple Boeing aircraft of the same model were exposed to have loose bolts, public opinion was once again ignited. On the 8th, Boeing's stock price significantly declined on the same day, closing down 8.03%. On the 9th, the closing price continued to decline.
Preliminary investigation: There are "component issues" with the same type of aircraft
On the second day after the emergency hatch was announced to have been found, United Airlines stated that preliminary inspections revealed some issues related to the installation of door plugs on Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, such as the need for further reinforcement of bolts, but did not disclose how many planes had loose bolts.
Shortly after United Airlines spoke out, Alaska Airlines also stated that during preliminary inspections, the company found some Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft to have "loose parts".
According to Boeing's official website, the Boeing 737 MAX series aircraft have a 20% reduction in fuel consumption and emissions, and a 50% reduction in noise footprint compared to the aircraft models it replaces. In addition, the body maintenance cost of the 737 MAX is 14% lower than that of its competitors. At present, there are four models of aircraft in this series: 737 MAX 7, 737 MAX 8, 737 MAX 9, and 737 MAX 10, with maximum seats ranging from 172 to 230.
This is not the first time that a component issue has been discovered in a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
According to previous reports from Southern Metropolitan Government, on December 28, 2023 local time, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States disclosed that an international operator found that bolts and nuts were missing during routine maintenance of the rudder control linkage of a 737 MAX aircraft. Boeing recommended conducting an inspection. Boeing also discovered that the nuts were not properly tightened on another undelivered aircraft. It is understood that the problematic parts belong to critical safety items, and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States requires a double inspection of them.
Boeing subsequently stated that the issue had been corrected, but due to careful consideration, it was recommended that all operators inspect their 737 MAX aircraft. Affected by this incident, Boeing's stock price fell by more than 1% on the same day.
In fact, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft has previously experienced multiple manufacturing defects, even affecting the delivery of the aircraft on a large scale.
In April 2023, Boeing suspended delivery of some 737 MAX aircraft due to quality issues with components provided by suppliers. Boeing has promised that the production issues discovered this time will not directly affect the safety of aircraft that have already been put into use, and aircraft that are undertaking flight missions can continue to be used.
In August of the same year, Boeing claimed to have discovered improper drilling of components on the rear pressure bulkhead of certain 737 MAX aircraft models, resulting in delayed delivery of some models. The delivery volume of the 737 MAX aircraft dropped to its lowest level since August 2021 in September.
In this cabin door drop accident, apart from component issues, the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States voluntarily admitted that one of the automatic pressurization fault lights on the aircraft involved had been on at least three times in the month before the accident, "which may indicate that there was a problem with the aircraft's pressurization.".
Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Shen Jizhong
Although United Airlines has stated that its technical operations team will remedy issues such as loose screws to ensure safe go-around, the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States has reiterated that "warning lights may not be related to this accident." Volkswagen still has doubts about the quality and safety of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
The frequent quality issues of the 737 MAX aircraft have gradually exposed the internal chaos of Boeing to the public eye.
Continuous crashes: continuously exposing internal chaos within Boeing
The event can be traced back to two major air disasters many years ago.
According to previous reports from Nandu, on October 29, 2018, the Indonesian Lion Air JT610 flight carrying 189 people crashed in the waters of Java 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, with a 737 MAX 8 aircraft. In less than half a year, the aircraft experienced its second crash - on March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines ET302 flight carrying 149 passengers, including 8 Chinese passengers, and 8 crew members crashed 6 minutes after takeoff.
Two air disasters resulted in 346 deaths. Subsequently, relevant agencies conducted several years of investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
In October 2019, a joint group of international aviation safety regulatory agencies released a report stating that the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States had insufficient capabilities in evaluating Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, and that the evaluation process had shortcomings such as fragmentation and lack of communication between teams. The Federal Aviation Administration will also outsource some regulatory responsibilities to Boeing, allowing Boeing to complete its own aircraft safety certification work.
According to foreign media reports in the same year, according to formal procedures, pilots must train for several hours in a large simulated cockpit, simulate flight experiences, and learn new features. Although several US airline unions have requested Boeing to provide flight simulators for the 737 MAX aircraft, Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration believe that pilots who have previously flown early models do not need additional simulator training, which has resulted in many 737 MAX pilots lacking necessary simulator flight training and failing to understand the performance of the aircraft in the appropriate way. Pilots of the 737 MAX aircraft have revealed that they even learned to pilot this new type of aircraft using iPad software.
18 months after the Ethiopian aviation incident, in September 2020, the US House of Representatives released the investigation results of two 737 MAX aircraft accidents, stating that the "crash" was not the result of a single malfunction, technical error, or poor management, but rather a series of erroneous technical assumptions made by Boeing engineers. "The air crash was caused jointly by the manufacturer Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States."
On March 11, 2019, people gathered at the crash site near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Shen Jizhong
Boeing has also been accused of cutting corners in the design of the Automatic Anti Stall (MCAS) system for the 737 MAX aircraft. In June of the same year, foreign media reported that the MCAS system of the 737 MAX aircraft, originally in the development stage, was designed with two sensors for data transmission. However, in the end, only one sensor was used, resulting in a lack of security for the system.
In addition, during the approval and delivery stages, Boeing did not emphasize the changes in the MCAS system of the 737 MAX aircraft to regulatory agencies and major operators. This resulted in "most 737 MAX pilots not even knowing the existence of this automatic anti stall system" before the Indonesian Lion Air crash in October 2018.
The issue with the cockpit warning lights of the 737 MAX aircraft was revealed in June 2019. Boeing revealed that in 2017, when it sold a large number of 737MAX aircraft to global airlines, it believed that its cockpit warning lights were applicable to all systems. In May of the same year, Boeing aircraft engineers discovered that the warning light would only function if the airline purchased another independent cockpit indication system.
Even though the company's net loss in the second quarter of 2019 broke its record for the largest quarterly loss in history, Boeing still stated that slowing or suspending the production of Boeing 737MAX aircraft would bring greater losses to Boeing.
Difficult Go-Around: 737MAX still experiences frequent accidents
On March 11, 2019, the Civil Aviation Administration of China took the lead in issuing a notice requiring domestic transportation airlines to suspend commercial operations of Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. After grounding the aircraft in over 55 countries and regions worldwide, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States announced on March 13 of the same year a ban on the Boeing 737 MAX 8. On the 26th, the Civil Aviation Administration of China suspended the issuance of airworthiness certificates for Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.
Boeing, deeply embroiled in the grounddown controversy, has also attempted to break through.
In April 2019, Boeing publicly announced that delivery of the 737 MAX aircraft had been suspended. The statement revealed that Boeing will adjust its 737 production system accordingly, focusing on completing software upgrade certification and putting MAX aircraft back into operation.
On May 16 of the same year, Boeing issued a statement stating that it had completed software updates for the 737 MAX aircraft, as well as corresponding simulation testing and engineering verification flights, and was preparing for the final go around certification. The statement revealed that Boeing has conducted 207 flights using the 737 MAX aircraft with updated software installed, with a total flight time exceeding 360 hours.
A week later, representatives of aviation regulatory agencies from more than 30 countries, including China, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, held a meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, USA to discuss whether to allow the Boeing 737 MAX to go around, but no consensus was reached at the meeting.
On June 26 of the same year, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States announced that a new "potential risk factor" had been discovered on the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which could lead to the aircraft diving downwards. Boeing must address the new risk before the agency can approve the 737 MAX to go around.
One year later, on June 29, 2020, Boeing launched a certification test flight for the 737 MAX aircraft under the supervision of the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States, in order to obtain a go around permit. However, just a few days later, the US Department of Transportation publicly stated that an investigation showed that Boeing's certification documents for the 737 MAX aircraft did not provide key design changes to the aircraft's control system, resulting in the Federal Aviation Administration not focusing on reducing the associated risks of the control system during its approval process.
Despite controversy, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States lifted a 20 month flight ban on the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in November 2020, allowing airlines under its jurisdiction to go around the aircraft after meeting new compliance requirements.
The remains of the victims of the Lion Air crash were captured on November 2, 2018 at Tanjung Bulu Port in Jakarta, Indonesia. Shen Jizhong
In December of the same year, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft made its first go around in Brazil. However, more than a month later, on January 23, 2021 local time, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft was temporarily cancelled due to a malfunction discovered during its first go around in Canada. In December of the same year, Indonesia, which had experienced the Lion Air disaster, approved the resumption of a Boeing 737 MAX passenger aircraft.
On December 2, 2021, the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft regained airworthiness permits in China. Two years later, on December 29, 2023, Boeing China President Liu Qing issued a statement stating that with the joint cooperation of the Boeing team and the customer team, all 737 MAX of Civil Aviation of China have resumed operations. "Now, the Chinese Max fleet consisting of nearly a hundred aircraft is serving passengers with higher efficiency and better flight experience, and has begun to operate multiple regional international routes."
It has been four years since China stopped purchasing Boeing 737 MAX models.
However, despite many efforts made by Boeing to make the 737 MAX aircraft go around, the aircraft still experiences frequent accidents worldwide.
Just one month after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted the flight ban on the Boeing 737 MAX, on December 22, 2020 local time, an engine accident occurred on an Air Canada Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft; On March 5, 2021 local time, an American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX aircraft experienced an "emergency situation" during flight. The captain shut down one of the aircraft's engines during the flight due to "possible mechanical failure", and the aircraft made an emergency landing.
The investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft accident is still ongoing, and the 737 series has experienced another storm. On the morning of January 9th local time, a Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by Northern Star Airlines of Russia crashed off the runway during landing at Norilsk Airport in Russia. Fortunately, there were no casualties, and the cause of the accident is currently under investigation.