Boeing’s midair door blowout ‘can happen again,’ NTSB chair warns, noting ‘a problem in the process’
The chair of the National Transportation Safety Board warned that another midair door blowout like the nearly disastrous one that happened on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane last month “can happen again.”
“Of course, something like this can happen again,” the NTSB’s Jennifer Homendy said on “CNN This Morning” aired Wednesday.
“There is no way that this plane should have been delivered with four safety critical bolts missing,” Homendy added, noting “a problem in the process.”
Homendy deterred travelers from Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 airliners just two days after the Federal Aviation Administration said that roughly 94% of the aircraft — 135 of 144 jets — have been inspected and cleared to fly.
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are the only two US carriers that operate the MAX 9 Boeing model.
Separately on Tuesday, a preliminary report of the fuselage blowout on Jan. 5’s Alaska Airlines flight attributed the terrifying incident to four missing bolts intended to hold the door plug in place.
Until then, the NTSB had not said what caused the panel to rip off an Alaska Airlines-operated jet as the plane climbed to 16,000 feet after taking off from Portland, Oregon.
The event has become a full-blown safety and reputational crisis for Boeing, which has been notified by its supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, of additional manufacturing issues in some 50 undelivered 737 MAX 9 planes.
Sprit AeroSystems told Boeing Sunday that there were incorrectly drilled holes on a number of fuselages, which will require additional work expected to cause near-term delays of the aircraft.
Despite Homendy’s evaluation of the blowout — which had Boeing’s CEO Dave Calhoun fighting back tears as he acknowledged the company’s “mistake” in during an all-hands meeting — the NTSB chief said she wouldn’t be worried about getting on a MAX 9.
“They have been inspected, thoroughly, I believe,” Homendy told CNN. “I would have no problem tomorrow taking a flight on a MAX 9.”
The Post has sought comment from the NTSB, which has reportedly started “digging [in]to FAA’s oversight board of Boeing,” according to Homendy.
She also said that that NTSB has to do a better job at “digging into what’s going on at Boeing,” noting that she agrees with Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Whitaker’s testimony before Congress on Tuesday, when he said that the agency has been depending too much on aircraft makers like Boeing to regulate themselves, per CNN.
Catch up on Boeing's ongoing airplane fiasco
Boeing has recently been plagued by safety concerns that began Jan. 5 after a door panel blew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet during a flight from Oregon to California. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the plane — which was operated by Alaska Airlines — appeared to be missing four key bolts.
Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, threatened to shun Boeing after the carrier’s fleet of MAX 9 aircraft was grounded in the wake of the near-disastrous Alaska Airlines door blowout.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, warned that another midair door blowout like the Boeing 737 MAX 9 fiasco “can happen again,” adding there was a “problem with the process” of production.
Disaster struck again a week after the initial incident when a Boeing plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Japan due to a crack in the cockpit window.
A Boeing 757 lost its front tire as the aircraft was preparing to depart for an international flight in late January. At Atlanta International Airport, a Delta flight bound for Bogota, Colombia, was taxiing across the runway into takeoff position when another plane alerted the control tower that something was amiss.
Later, a UK passenger was alarmed after noticing pieces of tape on the exterior of a Boeing 787 during a flight to India, as seen in shocking photos.
A United Airlines Boeing 777-300 aircraft suffered a midair fuel leak and was forced to make an emergency landing Monday, March 11, marking the fifth incident the airline reported in a little over a week.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary previously said he’s made “loud complaints” to Boeing over quality control.
Whistleblower John Barnett raised safety concerns at the airline’s factories and provided his first testimony at a bombshell lawsuit against Boeing. He was found dead in his truck after he failed to show up for the second part of his testimony on Monday.
“The current system is not working ‘cause it’s not delivering safe aircraft,” Whitaker added. “So we have to make some changes to that.”
“I absolutely agree that it needs to change,” Homendy told CNN, adding that the issue is more of “a quality control problem,” and goes beyond Alaska Airlines’ fuselage blowout last month.
