• The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is leading an investigation into the incident, said pilots had reported pressurisation warning lights on three previous flights made by the specific Alaska Airlines Max 9 involved in the incident.

    As bad as it is if a manufacturing issue caused a piece to fall off an airplane, there’s a huge amount of negligence in an airline continuing to fly an airplane that has triggered pressure warnings multiple times without investigating and resolving the issue.

    •  n2burns   ( @n2burns@lemmy.ca ) 
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      And the next paragraph:

      The jet had been prevented from making long-haul flights over water so that the plane “could return very quickly to an airport” in the event the warnings happened again, NTSB chief Jennifer Homendy said.

      Which makes it sound like they couldn’t find the source of that warning but weren’t willing to completely write it off.

      Nevermind:

      “An additional maintenance look” was requested but “not completed” before the incident, Ms Homendy said.

    • Agreed. This is a multi-layered fuckup. The manufacturer probably didn’t tighten things down all the way, their QA didn’t catch the critical defect, the plane inspectors didn’t catch it during inspection, the airline didn’t ground it after a pressurization warning, the pilot flew a plane with a known issue. There are several cultures of complacency at play. Hopefully the FAA can scare everyone into flying right.

    • Ex-aircraft mechanic here. Nothing will have been done in this situation without paperwork backing the decision. There are often small niggles that could ground an aircraft, but there are manuals that can be consulted to see how many more flights can be taken before it must be grounded for rectification - the MEL (minimum equipment list) and CDL (configuration deviation list). So the airline will not have made the ultimate decision to keep flying, Boeing will.

      The fact that this has now been found in two different airlines means that it’s a design flaw again, either the locking mechanism on the bolts is insufficient, or the reinstallation instructions in the maintenance manual is incorrect (the Alaska airlines aircraft door plug was recently removed to carry out maintenance on another part)

      • As an airline customer, I would much rather have the airline tell me the plane was grounded due to parts being ready to fall off than the 3 hours I had to wait one time because of a busted tray table.

        • If it’s not in the MEL or CDL then you can’t fly without it. They’re basically a book of approvals for how long you can get away with stuff.

          Btw If the tray table can’t be stowed, you can’t take off with anyone in that row because of the danger in an emergency landing.

  • After looking at that diagram I have to ask - why in the everliving fuck would a pressure bearing panel like that be hung by bolts and not inserted into the cabin and held in place by the ribs of the fuselage? I mean seriously?

  • This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Bolts in need of “additional tightening” have been found during inspections of Boeing 737 Max 9s, United Airlines has said.

    Inspections began after a section of the fuselage fell from an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 on Friday.

    United Airlines said “installation issues” relating to door plugs would be “remedied” before the aircraft type would return to service.

    In its statement, United said: “Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug - for example, bolts that needed additional tightening.”

    The door plug is a piece of fuselage with a window that can be used as an emergency exit in certain configurations.

    It was this part of the Alaska Airlines plane which dramatically fell off mid-flight over the US state of Oregon, eventually landing in a teacher’s back garden.


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