Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 airliner door plug incident

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On January 5, 2024 Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland International Airport at 5:07 PM. Six minutes later, at an altitude of 16,300 feet a 2x4’ door plug detached from the fuselage (as shown above), causing a rapid loss of cabin pressure. Luckily the crew was able to return to the airport and there were no severe injuries or fatalities. A door plug is a panel for covering an unused emergency exit. An article by George Petras et al. at USA Today on January 8, 2024 titled A Boeing 737 Max 9 lost a panel midair, terrifying passengers. Here’s how it happened describes the incident. Another article by Kristian Foden-Vencil at OPB on January 8, 2024 titled Portland teacher recounts finding Boeing door plug in his yard told about an astonished science teacher, Bob Sauer. A third article by Sean Broderick at Aviation Week Network on January 9, 2024 is titled NTSB Eyeing Door Plug Bolts in Alaska 737-9 Accident Probe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fourth article by David Shepardson at Reuters on February 6, 2024 titled Bolts appeared to be missing from door plug that flew off Boeing MAX 9 jet – agency discussed preliminary results from NTSB. The plug had been removed to repair some rivets, and not properly reinstalled. There should have been four bolts fitted with castle nuts (as shown above) and locked in place by cotter pins. If those bolts had been installed correctly, then they never should have loosened and come off. A close-up view of a properly installed castle nut can be found here on the last page from an October 2016 NHTSA Recall for an Autocar Industries truck.

 

On May 6, 2018 I blogged about how Driverless cars don’t need steering wheels – but the rest of us sure do. In that post I discussed another incident (which I’d helped investigate) involving a motorglider crash due to a locknut not being properly tightened.

 

On January 12, 2024 in his Writing Boots blog Dave Murray linked to a humorous video by Clarke and Dawe describing another incident – where The Front Fell Off.  

 

I adapted an image of a Boeing 737 from Openclipart. An image of a castle nut came from Wikimedia Commons.