3 passengers on the Alaska Airlines blowout flight are suing the carrier and Boeing for $1 billion

businessinsider.com ^ | Mar 4, 2024 | Pete Syme

[V_TWIN]

Three people who were on board Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 are asking for $1 billion in punitive damages from the carrier and Boeing.

Kyle Rinker, Amanda Strickland, and Kevin Kwok flew on the Boeing 737 Max 9 which lost its door plug in midair on January 5, according to a press release from the aviation law firm Jonathan W. Johnson LLC.

The blowout caused an uncontrolled decompression, meaning oxygen masks were deployed before the jet returned to Portland International Airport 20 minutes later. Nobody was seriously injured.

The lawsuit was filed last month in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, Oregon.

In its press release, the law firm said it "seeks to hold Boeing accountable for its negligence which had caused extreme panic, fear, and post-traumatic stress."

It added that it is asking for "substantial" damages because the "preventable incident" risked the lives of 180 people.

[drwoof]

“Money is just the currency of reality itself.”

Truer words never spoken.

[V_TWIN]

“hurt feelings aren’t damages”

It is to the snowflakes.....
and blood sucking lawyers. 🤣

[ganeemead]

Between Boeing and Pfizer, my flying days are pretty much over.

[Gay State Conservative]

Nope...what we have here is a filthy,slimy lawyer representing filthy,slimy clients. Yes,it might be fitting for Boeing to be fined by the government for one or more forms of negligence but,like I said,given their despicable chutzpah I'd give *nothing* to the passengers.

True story: years ago there was a huge fire in a nightclub in Rhode Island.About 100 kids were killed.After investigation it was learned that the club owners were broke and had no insurance and the band that was playing (their show was deemed to be the cause of the fire) was broke and had no insurance. So the lawyers then announced that they were suing SHELL OIL COMPANY (yah,*that* Shell Oil) because they were one of the sponsors of the band's tour.

That,to me,is just one example of how filthy these "slip and fall" lawyers are. And this case is another one.

[Gay State Conservative]

You’ve got a better chance of dying in a car made by *any* car maker (US,Europe,Asia) than you do in a Boeing aircraft...or an Airbus craft for that matter. OTOH,I’d never fly in a Russian or Chinese made aircraft...NEVER!

[Yo-Yo]

That hatch should be larger than the opening and never fit through it unless rotated 90 degrees horizontally and again sideways.

This is an almost full size exit door, not an overwing exit. It is too big and heavy to do what you propose.

When used as an emergency exit door, it was designed to move up out of alignment with 12 stops that hold the door in against cabin pressure, then once clear of the stops it rotates out and down on two hinges at the bottom of the door, also activating an emergency slide.

The plug that departed this aircraft is used when the emergency exit is not needed (due to max passenger capacity configuration) and mounts just like the emergency exit door, but is supposed to be bolted in so it cannot move up out of alignment with the door stops.

The door plug was removed to rework some rivets next to the opening, and when Boeing workers reinstalled the door plug they never reinstalled the retaining bolts the permanently lock the plug in place, which allowed to door plug to eventually work its way up along the tracks and then pop out.

This took months and several flights. The plug is covered with a standard inner wall panel, so you cannot even see the door plug from the inside of the aircraft.

[EEGator]

The compensation against Alex Jones for words was $1.4 billion…

[Salgak]

I was laid off from Boeing in 2009. The 2009-2010 layoffs were ~15000 people. Engineers and Line Workers.

But not a single Manager lost **their** job. . .

[Ex-Con777]

>However, last I heard was Boeing was unresponsive to turning over that data to the NTSB.<

It depends what data is being requested.

The aircraft left the Boeing plant in airworthy condition with a door. Spirit performed the door plug modification. It either was or wasn’t installed properly at that point.

The plane was delivered to Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines performed maintenance on the aircraft. It was either done properly or it wasn’t.

I have a hard time placing blame on really deep pockets Boeing since the door plug is not their modification. That’s most likely why they are all lawyered up.

EC

[V_TWIN]

“It depends what data is being requested”

I imagine they want to see everything maintenance related to that door area.

[GMThrust]

Simple understandable explanation, thank you. This is what I don’t agree with: “The plug that departed this aircraft is used when the emergency exit is not needed (due to max passenger capacity configuration)...”
Why on earth restrict another way to get out of a plane in an emergency. Either make it accessible or not.

[Yo-Yo]

Why on earth restrict another way to get out of a plane in an emergency. Either make it accessible or not.

FAA requires that there needs to be an exit per a certain number of passengers. More passengers, more exits.

The 737 already has 8 exits, two forward doors, two rear doors, and four overwing exits.

If an airline wanted to outfit their 737-9 with more than, but don't quote me I'm not going to look up the exact nubmer, 178 passengers, then two additional "mid-cabin exit doors" are required to certify the aircraft for the additional passengers

But the mid-cabin doors take up half a row of seats, takes away a row of overhead bin storage, and provides only a tiny porthole of a window for the passenger (see pic below.) If an airline configures their interior to be below the magic number (I guessed 178), then the airline doesn't need to have the two mid-cabin emergency exit doors. In this case a plug is installed in place of the exit door, and a full sized window is built into the plug. A fully finished interior wall covers the plug location and an overhead bin is installed, so to the passengers it just looks like another window. The only way to know you're sitting in a 'door plug' row is that the spacing between windows is slightly wider where the plug is, and on the exterior you can still see the outline of the door.

Also, the plug is slightly lighter than the door and its automatically deploying slides. So if you don't need the door, you save a bit of weight with the plug as well.

If at any time in the future the airline wishes to reconfigure the cabin for maximum passengers, they can remove the plugs and install emergency exit doors because the framing is already built into the fuselage.

Mid Cabin Exit Door:

[T.B. Yoits]

They absolutely could design that hatch to never fit out the opening while upright.

The lawyers will likely get them to do it now.

[bert]

No, untrue.

Ambulance chasing lawyers are suing Boeing.

[minnesota_bound]

What about the 3 orphans that got sucked out the door?....

[Texan4Life]

Boeing admits it can’t find records on the Alaska Airlines door plug work

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-admits-it-cant-find-records-on-the-alaska-airlines-door-plug-work/

[minnesota_bound]

They did find the records.... that had the repair guys saying lets’s knock off for the day. The next shift can finish up.
Someone leave a note for them on what to do.

[garandgal]

I’m a first year Gen-X. The Boomers and the Neocons on this site are suffering from a ridiculous case of “normalcy bias.”

Attention! The Commies are now in control. Remember how we watched the airplane accidents in communist countries and rolled our eyes?

And now, here we are.