On Friday, January 5, an Alaska Air's Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft had an inflight accident that is the source of much discussion now. After take-off as the aircraft was climbing, the mid-cabin exit door panel came off at approximately 16000 feet forcing an emergency landing. With 177 souls on board, the aircraft landed safely and within hours, there were deft actions from the airline, from the manufacturer and from the regulator, including a grounding of the fleet type, and mandates for additional checks.
Almost all agree that several things aligned whereby the aircraft (after the door mishap) returned with all crew and passengers safe. As with any aviation incident, it is too early to speculate given the technical nature of the incident and the ongoing investigation. Evenso, given the exacting standards of aviation safety, impacts of this are likely to flow through.
Boeing 737 MAX 9
The Boeing 737 MAX is an evolution of the Boeing 737 aircraft. It was developed to have increased range and capacity and thus required a longer fuselage and the option for additional fuel tanks. It made its roll-out and debut in the first half of 2017 with the test flight in April that year and display at the Paris Airshow.
The 737MAX 9 traces its origins to the Boeing 737 which is often referred to as an industry workhorse and the most sold aircraft in aviation history. However, it was also a topic of much discussion emanating from the two fatal flights in 2019 which had led to a global grounding of the 737MAX fleet and a subsequent recertification.
The aircraft involved in the accident, a Boeing 737MAX 9, was fairly new and had come off the production line just 2 months earlier. The aircraft in question had a mid-cabin door plug which came off resulting in the door separating and consequent decompression.
While the investigation is ongoing and the plug has been found, the root cause analysis may take a while. But given the current scenario and the advent of social media the regardless of root cause there is likely to be impact.
Global impact — situation to evolve as new information emerges
As a result of the accident, Alaska airlines grounded their entire 737MAX 9 fleet of 65 aircraft. Further, the US regulator — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — ordered the temporary grounding of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft operated by US airlines or in US territory and issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD).
The EAD mandates that airlines inspect affected aircraft before further flight indicating, “the FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight.” Concurrently, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating actively and has already found the door plug that is a critical element to the entire accident.
With the EAD, the present estimates are that this will impact approximately 171 airplanes worldwide. All roads are leading back to the regulator and the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
While, an Alaska Airlines statement notes that; “While we await the airworthiness directive (AD) inspection criteria from the FAA and Boeing, our maintenance teams are prepared and ready to perform the required inspections of the mid exit door plugs on our 737-9 MAX fleet. The 737-9 MAX grounding has significantly impacted our operation. We have cancelled 170 Sunday flights and 60 cancellations for Monday, with more expected (in the following days). “
For other countries, the groundings and decisions will unravel as more information starts to flow. And also as other country regulators analyse the situation and weigh it against their own risk processes.
For instance, in India, there are no airlines flying this particular variant of the aircraft. Evenso, hours after news of the accident, the Indian regulator (DGCA) mandated a check of all overwing exit doors on the 737MAX aircraft. These are flown by 3 airlines namely SpiceJet, Air India Express and Akasa. The checks were completed on Monday.
Commercial impact – still too early to say
The commercial impact of the 737MAX 9 accident is extremely hard to predict. Because this will also be driven by the spread of information and/or misinformation. Already, speculative analysis is abundant on what is a fairly technical issue. But given the exacting nature of aviation safety and the built in redundancy, a serious cause for concern is valid.
For now, no airlines have reported a drastic fall in forward bookings (usually a tell), nor have there been any other links found to any other incidents globally. Evenso, one just has to search for the volume of information that is permeating through merely 72 hours later and this is the demand cycle and commercial cycle that is the new normal. If everything checks out, it will just be business as usual, but a spark here or there could trigger virality and those consequences will fall to the entire aviation ecosystem which is just about ready to emerge from the pandemic and report a fairly good year.
For Boeing, it is one more challenge in a series of challenges. Interestingly, because it has happened with the Boeing 737MAX variant, which had an extensive recertification process, this would have come as a shock and surprise.
Boeing CEO is addressing all employees today (Tuesday) for an all-employee safety meeting, while its annual leadership retreat has been cancelled. Boeing’s own statement indicates that this is to, “focus on our support to Alaska Airlines and the ongoing National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation, and any of our airline customers experiencing impact to their fleets.”
—The author, Satyendra Pandey, is Managing Partner of the aviation services firm AT-TV. The views expressed are personal.
(Edited by : C H Unnikrishnan)
First Published: Jan 9, 2024 8:57 AM IST
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