United Airlines finds loose bolts and parts from at least FIVE Boeing 737 Max 9 planes – new photos show Alaska Airlines door being recovered after it blew out at 16,000 feet in near-fatal disaster
According to reports, United Airlines discovered loose bolts during inspections of its 737 Max 9 aircraft after Alaska Airlines' shocking door slam on Friday.
The alarming findings came as the The National Transportation Safety Board has released new photos of the damaged Alaska Airlines door plug after it was found in the backyard of a suburban Portland home.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Monday that airlines can begin safety inspections of more than 100 grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 planes.
United has reportedly already found loose bolts and other parts on plug doors on at least five of its planes The airflow.
The airline told DailyMail.com on Monday: 'Since we started preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found cases that appear to be related to installation problems in the door plug, for example bolts that required additional tightening. These findings will be addressed by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.” DailyMail.com has contacted Boeing for comment.
An emergency exit used as a cabin window (pictured) fell off the flight from Portland to California at 16,000 feet on Friday
The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the door plug that blew out in midair on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282
The agency's investigators will examine the door plug and send it to the NTSB Materials Laboratory in Washington, DC for further examination
Terrified passengers feared for their lives Friday after an emergency exit used as a cabin window fell at 16,000 feet on an Alaskan Airlines flight from Portland to California. Federal regulators quickly grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes on Saturday.
After recovering the damaged Alaska Airlines door, NTSB said on
The images come after Boeing's shares took their biggest plunge in more than a year on Monday, losing as much as $13.5 billion in value on the first day of trading after the Alaska Airlines mid-air explosion.
The near disaster caused shares of Boeing Corp to fall 8.6 percent (from 248 to 228) between Friday evening and Monday morning. The stock continued to fall after the market opened, reaching 226 points. Analysts warned that the stock is expected to continue falling until the planes are back in service.
Meanwhile, shares of Alaska Air fell 4.3 percent, while shares of United Airlines, the other US carrier that operates the plane, fell 2.4 percent.
Spirit AeroSystems, which produced and installed the fuselage part of the brand new MAX 9 aircraft in question, fell 20.8 percent, adding to the gloom surrounding the supplier that recently recovered from a series of quality issues.
Wall Street analysts viewed the accident as a temporary setback for Boeing, but some took a dim view of a series of quality problems related to the 737 MAX family of aircraft.
Alaskan Airlines quickly made the transition to ground aircraft after the near-disaster in Portland on Friday, and CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement that the aircraft will not be returned to the fleet until it completes preventive maintenance procedures, which he expected to be ” would take place in the future. next few days.”
After the case, Alaskan Airlines decided to ground dozens of Boeing 737-9 MAX jets for urgent safety checks
There were no serious injuries from Friday's terrifying air disruption, but passengers' belongings, including phones, flew off the plane
A photo shows the blown-out area. It is offered as a door on the plane. Alaska chose not to take this option – even though the frame of the future door was completely torn out due to the failure of the hull
In a statement shared with X on Saturday, the regulator said it requires immediate inspections of certain aircraft before they can return to the skies.
In a statement shared with X on Saturday, the regulator said it requires immediate inspections of certain aircraft before they can return to the skies.
The FAA's decision to ground the fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9s comes after several airlines and regulators took similar steps.
Boeing competes with Airbus, which has increased its market share since two Boeing MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed nearly 350 people and grounded the MAX worldwide for 20 months.
Airbus shares rose more than 1 percent early on Monday. The company will announce this week that it delivered 735 planes last year, beating Boeing and remaining the world's largest aircraft maker for the fifth year in a row, industry sources said.
There were no serious injuries from Friday's terrifying air disruption, but passengers' belongings, including phones, flew off the plane.
One of the cellphones, an iPhone, was found by video game designer Sean Bates, who said he picked it up while out for a walk. In a series of posts on
Bates added that when he contacted the National Transportation and Safety Bureau, he was told this was the second such phone found. In a subsequent post, Bates showed that the charging plug was still in the phone, indicating that it had been pulled out.
Video game designer Sean Bates assumed the phone had been dropped by a jogger when he found it on the side of a road in rural Washington state because there was no scratch on it
Sean Bates, pictured here with NTSB investigators, said he was told his find was the second cell phone from the flight found by a member of the public
The flight that was scheduled to arrive at Ontario International in California returned Friday evening after the plug door came loose
The plug door tore off the left side of the Alaska Airlines plane Friday after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, en route to Ontario, California, depressurizing the plane and forcing the pilots to turn back and land safely with all 171 passengers and six crew members on board.
According to airline The Air Current, the plane involved in the incident was scrutinized by officials just a day before its window blew out.
The outlet claimed that on January 4, an intermittent warning light appeared as it taxied to a terminal from an earlier flight, prompting the airline to remove it from Extended Range Operations (ETOPS). Later that same day, during a separate flight, the warning returned.
The Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft involved in the incident had reportedly only entered service in November 2023 and was virtually new by aviation standards, having reportedly completed fewer than 200 flights before the incident.
The NTSB launched an investigation that will likely last months, focusing on the paneled exit door that blew off. On some jets that have fewer seats, the so-called door plug is installed instead of an emergency exit panel. The aircraft ordered to be grounded by the FAA all have these panels installed.