A two-day hearing into a near-catastrophic January incident involving an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX that necessitated an emergency landing will begin on Tuesday, according to US investigators.
In the episode’s video, oxygen masks were shown hanging in front of an open airplane area due to a panel that burst soon after takeoff, leaving the passengers at a height of roughly 16,000 feet in the open.
The goal of the hearing in Washington is “to determine the facts, circumstances, and probable cause of the transportation accident… and to make recommendations to improve transportation safety,” according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which is in charge of the investigation.
The plane soon went back to Portland where it safely landed, although there were eight minor injuries.
The NTSB immediately launched a probe and after a month said four bolts securing the panel were missing, according to preliminary findings released February 6.
During an inspection at the Renton factory in Washington state before to the aircraft’s delivery last October, four bolts were removed from these areas by Boeing employees, according to written papers and images gathered by the agency.
Approximately fifteen witnesses will testify before the NTSB on Tuesday and Wednesday over two full days of meetings in Washington.
Speakers will include representatives from Spirit AeroSystems, a major supplier, the Federal Aviation Administration, the machinists union, and Elizabeth Lund, senior vice president for quality at Boeing, among other corporate officials.
Alaska Airlines is not on the witness list.
Lund came under fire from the NTSB after providing a detailed summary of the incident in June to journalists touring the company’s Renton plant.
Boeing staff identified five “non-conforming” rivets in the fuselage after the arrived in Renton, but the issue “did not create a safety hazard,” Lund told reporters.
But when the fuselage panel, known as the door plug, was removed to replace the rivets, Boeing staff failed to file the documentation to make the change on the door plug, Lund said.
“We believe that plug was opened without the correct paperwork,” Lund told reporters. “There was a non-compliance to our processes at that point.”
She added that identifying the person who performed the work “is the responsibility of the NTSB and that investigation is still ongoing” and that Boeing was concentrating on filling a “gap” caused by the absence of paperwork.
