The fallout from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 continued today, as the Federal Aviation Administration notified Boeing it will be probing the company for alleged compliance with its approved 737 MAX aircraft design, while Senator Maria Cantwell (D‑Washington) demanded answers from the FAA concerning its oversight of both Boeing and Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems.
“The safety of the flying public is our top priority. We must know what caused the terrifying incident on an Alaska Airlines flight last week and whether manufacturers and FAA oversight failed to meet safety regulations. The American public deserves answers. I am asking the FAA to provide a full accounting of its oversight of manufacturers’ compliance and quality control standards,” Cantwell said in a news release after dispatching a letter to the FAA.
Cantwell, who has represented the Evergreen State in Congress’ upper chamber since 2001, is chair of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, with jurisdiction over the aviation sector.
“Cantwell has a decades long history in Congress as a leader and staunch advocate for aviation safety,” her news release notes. “In 2020, Senator Cantwell authored and negotiated the Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act (ACSAA) — comprehensive bipartisan, bicameral aviation safety legislation that implemented new aircraft safety and certification reforms in the wake of the Boeing 737 MAX crashes and was signed into law on December 27, 2020.”
Cantwell’s letter is below. She is requesting a response no later than January 25th from Administrator Mike Whitaker, and accompanying documentation pertaining to all Quality Systems Audits of Boeing and all Supplier Control Audits of Spirit.
Maria Cantwell’s letter to the FAAWhile Cantwell’s office was preparing to put the FAA on notice, the FAA was preparing to put Boeing on notice. “This incident should have never happened and it cannot happen again,” the FAA said in a statement announcing the transmission of the letter and releasing its contents.
Read the letter here:
FAA letter to BoeingBoeing offered a one-line response to the letter, saying only: “We will cooperate fully and transparently with the FAA and the NTSB on their investigations.”
Meanwhile, six passengers who were on board Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 — the flight that lost a plug in midair after taking off from PDX (Portland International Airport) — filed a lawsuit against Boeing in King County Superior Court.
“Although everyone is glad that the blowout occurred while the crew could still manage to land the aircraft safely, this nightmare experience has caused economic, physical and ongoing emotional consequences that have understandably deeply affected our clients, and is one more disturbing mark on the troubled 737-MAX series aircraft,” said attorney Daniel Laurence in a statement reported by The Seattle Times. Laurence is representing the plaintiffs.
Boeing told The Seattle Times it had no comment on the lawsuit.
After Friday’s episode, Alaska Airlines grounded its entire MAX 9 fleet. It has not been able to return any of those jets to service yet, which has resulted in a cascading series of cancellations that have disrupted a lot of people’s travel plans. Alaska has put in place a flexible cancellation policy for its customers, but that hasn’t done much for people who were counting on Alaska to get them from one city to another and could not make alternate arrangements in time.
United Airlines also has a number of MAX 9s, but it’s a bigger airline and has more assets it can deploy or reshuffle to compensate for its grounded jets.
The FAA has made it clear no MAX 9s will return to the skies until thorough inspections have taken place. However, the agency and Boeing appear to be at odds about the protocol for those inspections, so Alaska Airlines may have to operate in crisis mode for much longer than it would like to.