US federal officials have ordered the immediate grounding of some Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft until they are inspected after a plane suffered a blowout that left a gaping hole in the side of the fuselage.
There were 177 people on board the Alaska Airlines plane, which made an emergency landing when a window panel blew out after take-off.
The incident happened a week after Boeing urged airlines to inspect 737 Max aircraft for a possible loose bolt in the rudder control system, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Major airline customers for Boeing's 737 Max model include flydubai, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Ryanair, Air Canada, Turkish Airlines and some Chinese carriers, and regulators around the world say they are “closely monitoring” the situation.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said the agency required immediate inspections of certain planes before they can return to flight. The order affects 171 aircraft worldwide.
“Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker posted on X.
The cabin crew reported a pressurisation issue and the flight returned to the ground 20 minutes after it took off. The incident on Friday involved Flight 1282, which had departed from Portland International Airport in Oregon.
Images posted on social media showed the window panel of a plane blown out, with emergency oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.
The airline voluntarily grounded some of its planes before the wider FAA order.
“Following Friday's 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 chief executive Ben Minicucci said.
“Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections,” he said, anticipating checks would be finished in a few days.
Passenger Diego Murillo told KPTV the gap in the side of the plane was as wide as a fridge and described hearing a “really loud bang” as the oxygen masks dropped from above.
“They said there was a kid in that row whose shirt was sucked off him and out of the plane and his mother was holding on to him to make sure he didn't go with it,” he said.
Kyle Rinker, a passenger on the flight, told CNN that a window popped off soon after take-off.
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 and I look to the left and the wall on the side of the plane is gone,” she said.
“The first thing I thought was, 'I'm going to die'.”
Anthony Brickhouse, an air safety expert at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the incident showed the importance of passengers keeping their seat belts buckled while seated in a plane.
“Whenever you have a rapid decompression such as this, it's a major safety event,” he said.
“I can't imagine what these passengers experienced. It would have been loud. The wind would be rushing through that cabin. It was a probably pretty violent situation, and definitely a scary situation.”
The National Transportation Safety Board, FAA and Alaska Airlines have launched investigations into the incident.
“The aircraft landed safely back at Portland International Airport with 171 guests and six crew members,” the airline said.
“While this type of occurrence is rare, our flight crew was trained and prepared to safely manage the situation.”
The Boeing 737 Max 9 plane took off at 5.07pm, heading to Ontario, California, before returning to the Portland airport, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
The plane was certified airworthy in October and was newly delivered to Alaska Airlines, according to the FAA registry website.
Boeing wrote on X that it was gathering more information and a technical team stood ready to support the investigation.
In his statement, Mr Minicucci said Alaska Airlines was “working with Boeing and regulators to understand what occurred”.
Boeing has struggled in recent years with technical and quality control issues related to its 737 MAX models.
Last week, the US company told airlines that MAX aircraft should be inspected to check for loose hardware on rudder control systems after an international operator discovered a bolt with a missing nut during routine maintenance.
The company discovered an additional undelivered aircraft with a nut that was not properly tightened, it said.
Boeing's 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide following two MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people in total.
In 2019, the UAE’s regulator, the General Civil Aviation Authority issued a Safety Decision, meaning that the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft could not operate in UAE airspace.
It led to flydubai's fleet of 11 Boeing 737 MAX 8 and three MAX 9 aircraft being immediately removed from operational service.
The FAA only approved the planes' resuming of service after the company made changes to its flight control system.
Following “an exhaustive 20-month review by aviation stakeholders, there were a series of enhancements to the aircraft and its systems,” flydubai said in a statement.
