Could the Alaska Airlines flight incident have been avoided?
According to information from the New York Times, the plane, a Boeing 737 Max 9, was due to undergo a safety check the day a cork door came loose from the cabin in mid-flight.
Airline engineers had noticed a potential failure in the pressurization system the day before.
According to documents collected by the American daily, technicians noted that warning lights had lit up a little too often over the last ten days.
They even recommended that the plane be taken out of service and returned directly to the maintenance site in Oregon, without passengers.
Alaska Airlines reportedly refused, choosing to maintain the three flights scheduled for January 5.
The company planned to carry out the security check immediately.
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Door torn off in mid-flight on a Boeing 737 Max: poorly screwed bolts on several planes
Except that during the second flight, which was to connect Portland (Oregon) to Ontario (California), a cork holder detached from the fuselage of the aircraft a few minutes after takeoff, at an altitude of 16,000 feet.
The incident caused some minor injuries and the plane immediately turned around.
He was able to land safely at his home airport.
According to the New York Times, the company confirmed its decision to keep the plane in service because it did not believe the warning lights posed a serious enough problem to take the plane out of service early without carrying passengers.
An electronic fault could have been the cause of this failure according to her.
Missing bolts
Yet ample evidence of a potential problem with the plane had been accumulating for days or even weeks, interviews with the airline and findings of the Transportation Safety Agency's investigation revealed ( NTSB) to try to understand how the cork holder could have come off.
In addition to the flashing light signals, the investigation revealed that "four bolts intended to prevent the cap holder from moving upwards were missing before it moved."
Before the NTSB report was released, Alaska had already reported "loose equipment" after preliminary inspections.
Also read: Door torn off on Alaska Airlines flight: several passengers sue Boeing
This new incident has once again focused attention on Boeing's manufacturing process and the safety procedures followed by airlines.
After production problems reported throughout 2023, the American manufacturer is in the hot seat.
It has in fact experienced other episodes of failure and in particular had to slow down its deliveries due to problems on the fuselage, in particular on the rear watertight bulkhead of the aircraft.
In 2018 and 2019 two crashes of this model resulted in 346 deaths.
Other incidents have occurred since the Alaska Airlines incident.
On January 19, an Atlas Air 747 freighter made an emergency landing in Miami (Florida) after an “engine fire” shortly after takeoff.
On March 7, a Boeing 777 made an emergency landing in Los Angeles (California) after losing a tire on takeoff.
In the latest incident, a Latam Airlines 787 Dreamliner suddenly lost altitude, injuring many passengers who found themselves thrown into the ceiling of the plane.
An investigation was launched in New Zealand on Tuesday.