New Boeing 737 MAX Crisis

Boeing 737 MAX 9s stored at Seattle Tacoma International Airport (Jamsheed Motafram).

2024 is off to a crazy start! Between the A350-900 crash in Tokyo and now Alaska Airlines flight 1282 with a depressurization issue, the industry just doesn’t sleep! For those of you who don’t know, on January 5th 2024, Alaska Flight 1282 from Portland to Ontario, CA had a panel break off from the fuselage causing the cabin to depressurize. Luckily, the plane was able to return to Portland safely. However, this is another issue for Boeing to deal with in the new year as they are trying to get the MAX 7/10 as well as the 777X certified by 2025. In this post, I will talk about the response to this accident as well as who’s to blame for this crisis. 

Response to the Boeing Incident

Alaska 737s in Seattle. Thanks to the MAX grounding, Alaska has to deal with massive delays and cancellations (Jamsheed Motafram).

After the crash, Alaska Airlines decided to temporarily ground their fleet of sixty-five  737 MAX 9s to further investigate the root cause of the incident. Then United followed suit by planning to ground their MAX 9 fleet to investigate as well. This resulted in the FAA to temporarily ground 171 MAX 9s for a checkup to see if any of the other planes had similar issues. Unlike the 2019 grounding however, it’s not a full indefinite safety ban so once they get these issues fixed, they will be back in the air.

An Alaska MAX 9 prepping for a test flight at Boeing Field (Jamsheed Motafram).

I was able to reach out to a veteran aeronautical engineer  about what’s going on and he told me that it could be as simple as the fasteners used to attach the door plug to the fuselage  not being properly installed ... a situation which could be inspected for rapidly and have the affected planes back in the air within a relatively short period. And the FAA’s position, in the meantime, is that none of the affected airplanes can fly until the root cause is ascertained.  Following the instructions of the FAA, Turkish Airlines, Copa Airlines, and Aeromexico also grounded their MAX 9s till they find a fix. And lately, Alaska and United found loose bolts on the door plug.  What was supposed to take a few days initially could take weeks or months to fix. While the response is prompt, the bigger concern would be who is to blame for this? 

Who's to Blame?

The Boeing 737 MAX 10 prototype at Paine Field (Jamsheed Motafram).

So with the fallout from this crisis, the question is who is the guiltiest party out of this? The answers are both Boeing/Spirit Aerosystems and Alaska Airlines. To begin with, Boeing has been under a lot of fire thanks to the MAX incidents in 2018 and 2019 and even after that having issues with quality control on their aircraft. To begin with, there is no proper communication between Boeing and Spirit Aerosystems regarding quality issues. Just like with the Dreamliner crisis in 2013, Boeing didn’t hold their suppliers to a high standard for quality control and this a bad look for Spirit and Boeing. If this continues, I wouldn’t be surprised if Boeing sends engineers over to Spirit to help fix this issue like how they sent instructions to airlines to fix the door plug.

The monitors at Seattle Tacoma Internatinal. Not the delays and cancellations for Alaska Airlines as a result of the MAX 9 incident (Jamsheed Motafram).

In addition, Alaska Airlines should take responsibility for this crisis occurring as well. Before this incident the aircraft in question (N704AL), had multiple issues with pressurization the past two months. Instead of reaching out to Boeing and the FAA about this issue, the airline decided to restrict the aircraft to overland flights  just to keep it flying. This is a bad look for the airline because I was told from other aerospace engineers I talked to when they dealt with issues like this by depressurizing the plane on the ground to make sure the systems are working. Had Alaska done this and told Boeing about it, then it would have been a minor inconvenience as opposed to the crisis we would have got today. Instead Alaska kept the plane in question flying over land just so it can “have an emergency landing” if an issue like 1282 happened. Moral of the story is that the airline in question should have reported this issue to the FAA and Boeing. Consequently, not only Boeing’s reputation keeps getting tarnished but Alaska’s as well for knowing that the plane had issues and not investigating it. As a result, Alaska has to deal with a PR nightmare between this and the massive delays the airline has been dealing with as of late. When I was planespotting at Seattle Tacoma International Airport, I looked at the monitor and saw a lot of delays and cancellations making it an absolute mess for the Seattle-based airline. Hopefully, this will be fixed sooner rather than later and this will be a lesson learned that communication is important. Especially between, customers, manufacturers and suppliers. 

Conclusion

The tails of stored Alaska MAX 9s (Jamsheed Motafram).

In summary, this new MAX 9 crisis could have been avoided if there was better communication between all parties as aforementioned. But what do you guys think? Do you blame Boeing, Alaska or both for this crisis? Also, when the MAX 9 eventually is ungrounded, would you fly on the type? Me personally, once the dust settles, I will fly on the MAX once I know these issues are fixed because I also flew on a DC-10 when I was 8 years old and I didn’t know the controversies regarding the plane. And if the FAA is hard on Boeing with these issues, it will make me confident in flying the type again once the issue is fixed. While Boeing is going through these rough times, it’s important for the company to succeed not just for the sake of the American economy, but also for Airbus to up their game in the competition. But I would like to know your thoughts about this so politely leave your thoughts in the comments below and keep looking to the sky!