Posted on 01/06/2024 5:18:36 AM PST by fruser1
Alaska flight 1282, a Boeing 737-9 MAX bound for Ontario in California, left Portland just after 5pm local time on Friday when a deactivated emergency door used as a regular cabin window blew out at 16,000 feet. The controversial jet was carrying 171 passengers and six crew.
...ripping a child's shirt off and sucking passengers phones out of the plane. The Boeing 737-9 MAX rolled off the assembly line just two months ago, receiving its certification in November 2023, according to FAA record posted online
Miraculously, no injuries were reported on the plane, which had only gone into service in November 2023. Boeing, Alaska Airlines and the National Transportation Safety Board have all launched investigations.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
No kidding. The entire emergency hatch is gone as is the surrounding structure the hatch attaches to. It looks like there is nothing structural in that opening at all. There’s no torn metal. In fact, you don’t see any metal at all in that opening. What happened to the structural elements?
There wasn’t a door there, just a window. But the aircraft frame is built to accommodate a door there. The airline didn’t want a door in that row, so it was a wall with a window.
It later emerged that Boeing staff, in internal messages, were cavalier about FAA regulations and critical of the Max's design.One said it the aircraft was 'designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.'
The 737 design dates back to the 1960s and Boeing was criticized for adding large engines to an old airframe instead of using a 'clean sheet design'.
Better to blow at 16000 feet than at 40000!
“I don’t think it was a true emerg. door, but a larger window in a big panel.”
In the housing construction business we will sometimes rough-in a door or window, and then, for whatever reason, not install it (perhaps due to structural concerns), and instead fill-in the opening with extra framing wood to allow proper support for sheetrock and sheathing. The loads still go around the opening and the opening can later be knocked out to put in the door or window, but when the house is completed, you just see a plain wall.
I think it’s something similar here. The Primary Structure (aircraft lingo) goes around what would be an overwing exit, should the operator (airline lingo for...airline) want/need an overwing exit (typically depends on how many people they plan to cram into the plane). If they don’t need the overwing exit, then you put in a large panel to cover the area that would have been the exit hatch and hatch frame, with a window in it.
It’s hard to tell here what, exactly, failed first - whether it was the large panel, or just the window. But in the end, the large panel did release and hence the large opening in the fuselage.
Another black eye for Boeing. But the waiting list for the Airbus 320-Neo series is already years long…
Indeed. The airlines take anyone.
I have a granddaughter who is a pilot..she can’t read and has zero common sense.
She did make it on the honor roll at her highschool but so did everyone!
Race to the bottom!
Coincidentally I just watch a YouTube last night on the blowout of the left windshield of a British Air flight in which the captain was sucked half way out. The cause was that the wrong (undersized)screws were used to replace the windshield which was installed bolted on outside rather than inside (plug type). The amazing thing is the captain lived.
It’ll be raining phones over Alaska.
What a novel way to get a free phone!
Will the phones still be workable?
Will they survive the drop?
On a serious note: Glad all passengers are fine.
There's no wing outside that opening. I looked to see if it was like the Neo where they had to put in an undersized door between the wing exits and the rear door to meet emergency egress regulations, but I couldn't see any diagrams where Boeing has done that with the Max.
“Window”???!!!
The whole damned emergency door is gone.
Another case for the Airline Mishaps channel and YouTube. I love those videos.
Conversion flight?
They will rename that aisle as the DB Cooper parkway.
This is the result of the Macdonald Douglas merger. Qc out the window as. They say.
Whoa
If it is Boeing 737 MAX I’m not going
A different picture at Daily Mail gives a better view of the back of the seat/headrest missing from the seat next to the fuselage breach. Yikes!
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