ISTANBUL, TURKEY/ WASHINGTON, US – Turkish Airlines said on Sunday that it would ground five Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets in its fleet even as the US air safety regulator said it was grounding some of these jets pending inspections after a panel blew out of one of the planes in midair in the United States, forcing an emergency landing.
US-based Alaska Airlines grounded all 65 of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes on Friday after a flight carrying 171 passengers and six crew was forced to make an emergency landing, with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) saying a sealed-over door panel had opened and come off mid-flight.
The Alaska Airlines scare over Oregon prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration to order immediate inspections of around 171 of the jets operated worldwide.
The Federal Aviation Administration “is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” the agency said on X.
“In light of the incident with the Boeing 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines, five Boeing 737 MAX 9 in the Turkish Airlines fleet have been recalled for checks as a security precaution,” the airline said in a statement.
They will be grounded “where they are to land”, it added.
Alaska and United Airlines, which has the world’s largest fleet of 737 MAX 9s, have also grounded their planes for checks, leading to dozens of flight cancellations.
Aeromexico and Panamanian carrier Copa Airlines also said they had grounded the planes affected by the FAA order, while Icelandair said none of its 737 MAX 9s had the plane configuration specified in the FAA grounding order.
Boeing has so far delivered about 218 of the 737 MAX planes worldwide, the company told AFP.
“Following the event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement on Friday.
“Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections,” he said.
Passenger Kyle Rinker told CNN the problem occurred soon after takeoff.
“It was really abrupt. Just got to altitude, and the window/wall just popped off,” he told the broadcaster.
The NTSB said no one was sitting in the two places nearest the panel, but the Oregonian newspaper quoted passengers as saying a young boy seated in the row had his shirt ripped off by the sudden decompression, injuring him slightly.
Another passenger, Vi Nguyen, told The New York Times that a loud noise during the flight had woken her.
“I open up my eyes and the first thing I see is the oxygen mask right in front of me,” Nguyen told the newspaper. “And I look to the left and the wall on the side of the plane is gone.”
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I’m going to die,'” she added.
Very, very fortunate
Aviation specialist John Ostrower, of the Air Current website, said the affected panel was a “mid-aft door,” which, for some carriers, Boeing deactivates before delivering the new planes.
To passengers, the panel would appear like a normal window, he said.
The NTSB dispatched a team to Portland to examine the craft. The board’s chair, Jennifer Homendy, said it was “very, very fortunate” that the incident had not ended in tragedy.
“We have the safest aviation system in the world. It is incredibly safe,” she said. “But we have to maintain that standard.”
Homendy revealed that the door had fallen off over the Portland suburb of Cedar Hills, and called on residents to come forward if they found it.
The FAA and Alaska Airlines said they were also investigating.
“While this type of occurrence is rare,” the airline said in an earlier statement, “our flight crew was trained and prepared to safely manage the situation.”
Alaska Airlines said on Saturday that more than a fourth of its Max 9 fleet had been inspected since the incident, with nothing noteworthy being found.
The plane, which had been headed to Ontario, California, was certified airworthy in October and was newly delivered to Alaska Airlines, according to the FAA registry website.
“Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers,” Boeing said in a statement.
“We agree with and fully support the FAA’s decision to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane.”
Boeing has struggled in recent years with technical and quality control issues related to its 737 MAX models.
In December, the US aviation giant told airlines that MAX aircraft should be inspected to check for loose hardware on plane rudder control systems after an international operator discovered a bolt with a missing nut while performing routine maintenance.
Boeing’s 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide following two MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people in total.
The FAA approved the planes’ return to service only after the company made changes to its flight control system.