Eight good reads about Alaska Airlines 1282, which lost a door-sized plug after takeoff

An almost brand new Boe­ing 737 MAX 9 (reg­is­tra­tion num­ber N704AL) owned by Alas­ka Air­lines suf­fered mod­er­ate dam­age yes­ter­day when a door-sized plug sep­a­rat­ed from the body of the jet after take­off, prompt­ing an NTSB inves­ti­ga­tion and an FAA-ordered ground­ing of all MAX air­craft of the same type.

Thank­ful­ly, the crew of Alas­ka Air­lines Flight 1282 was able to get their plane and pas­sen­gers suc­cess­ful­ly back to Port­land Inter­na­tion­al Air­port with­in min­utes. There were no fatal­i­ties or seri­ous injuries. How­ev­er, the acci­dent has once again put Boe­ing’s trou­bled 737 MAX pro­gram back under the spot­light and raised ques­tions as to whether cor­ners are being cut in the assem­bly process.

Our team has put togeth­er a col­lec­tion of arti­cles that explain what we know so far and how it’s impact­ing avi­a­tion in the Pacif­ic North­west and beyond.

From The Seat­tle Times:

Boe­ing 737 MAX 9s ground­ed after Alas­ka Air­lines in-flight blowout

by Dominic Gates and Tay­lor Blatchford

An emer­gency aboard Alas­ka Air­lines Flight 1282 may have long-last­ing impli­ca­tions for 737 MAX mak­er Boe­ing, as well as Alaska.

From KOIN:

NTSB: Blown door from Alas­ka flight near Barnes Road

by Tim Steele

The door that blew off Alas­ka Air­lines Flight 1282 short­ly after take­off from Port­land Fri­day night is believed to be around Barnes Road near Hwy 217 and the Cedar Hills neighborhood.

From The Wall Street Journal:

‘Is It OK if I Hold Your Hand?’: Inside the Cab­in of Alas­ka Air­lines Flight 1282

by Patience Hag­gin and Alli­son Pohle

Pas­sen­gers recount har­row­ing expe­ri­ence after a chunk of the plane broke off midair

From The Asso­ci­at­ed Press:

Hear how a pilot calm­ly led her Alas­ka Air­lines flight to safe­ty dur­ing an emergency

by AP editors

Audio of the pilot com­mu­ni­cat­ing with air traf­fic con­trol as the emer­gency was unfold­ing shows how she calm­ly nav­i­gat­ed the plane to safety.

From Bloomberg:

Boe­ing 737 Max Blowout Points to Per­va­sive Flaws

by Brooke Sutherland

The ground­ing of a Boe­ing Max vari­ant after a fuse­lage sec­tion came apart midair on an Alas­ka Air­lines flight adds to the planemaker’s long list of problems.

From Politi­co:

Boe­ing 737 MAX again under scrutiny

by Ori­ana Pawlyk

The Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board will inves­ti­gate Fri­day night’s inci­dent where an exit door blew out of an Alas­ka Air­lines plane mid-flight. No one was injured.

From Forbes:

Ground­ing Of Boe­ing 737 MAX 9 Planes Is A Key Cri­sis Man­age­ment Lesson

by Edward Segal

The deci­sion by FAA to ground Boe­ing 737 MAX 9 air­craft tem­porar­i­ly pro­vides busi­ness lead­ers with an impor­tant cri­sis man­age­ment les­son: as soon as you know some­thing, do something.

From Reuters:

Boe­ing’s ongo­ing 737 MAX crisis

by Reuters staff

Read a time­line of recent issues sur­round­ing Boe­ing’s MAX planes.

Read­ers may also want to view this video from the Boe­ing 737 Tech­ni­cal Chan­nel on YouTube. “In it I cov­er the rea­son for the mid-cab­in exit door, its con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion, Door Warn­ings & Flight­locks, the SPSEU, MAX PSEU Dif­fer­ences and Alaskan [sic] 1282,” vlog­ger Chris Brady writes.

Video of NTS­B’s Jan­u­ary 6th brief­ing is avail­able for on demand view­ing as well.

The ini­tial state­ment released by Alas­ka Air­lines is below.

A state­ment from Alas­ka Air­lines CEO, Ben Minicucci:

At Alas­ka Air­lines, safe­ty is our foun­da­tion­al val­ue and the most impor­tant thing we focus on every day. Fol­low­ing tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decid­ed to take the pre­cau­tion­ary step of tem­porar­i­ly ground­ing our fleet of 65 Boe­ing 737–9 aircraft.

Each air­craft will be returned to ser­vice only after com­ple­tion of full main­te­nance and safe­ty inspec­tions. We antic­i­pate all inspec­tions will be com­plet­ed in the next few days.

I am per­son­al­ly com­mit­ted to doing every­thing we can to con­duct this review in a time­ly and trans­par­ent way.

We are work­ing with Boe­ing and reg­u­la­tors to under­stand what occurred tonight, and will share updates as more infor­ma­tion is avail­able. The NTSB is inves­ti­gat­ing this event and we will ful­ly sup­port their investigation.

My heart goes out to those who were on this flight – I am so sor­ry for what you expe­ri­enced. I am so grate­ful for the response of our pilots and flight atten­dants. We have teams on the ground in Port­land assist­ing pas­sen­gers and are work­ing to sup­port guests who are trav­el­ing in the days ahead.

And here’s the state­ment Boe­ing released today:

“Safe­ty is our top pri­or­i­ty and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our cus­tomers and their pas­sen­gers. We agree with and ful­ly sup­port the FAA’s deci­sion to require imme­di­ate inspec­tions of 737–9 air­planes with the same con­fig­u­ra­tion as the affect­ed air­plane. In addi­tion, a Boe­ing tech­ni­cal team is sup­port­ing the NTS­B’s inves­ti­ga­tion into last night’s event. We will remain in close con­tact with our reg­u­la­tor and customers.”

Book­mark this Alas­ka Air­lines page if you’re inter­est­ed in fur­ther updates. Go here to learn about the sys­temwide flex­i­ble trav­el pol­i­cy Alas­ka has imple­ment­ed due to Boe­ing 737–9 air­craft inspec­tions and win­ter weath­er in the Northeast.