Bolts blocking the 737 MAX’s doors were missing, breaking loose mid-flight.

The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX-9, which lost a door shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon on January 6, has revealed its first secrets. They are hardly trustworthy. Four bolts securing the plane’s doors were missing, according to the Transportation Safety Agency’s (NTSB) preliminary investigation report released Tuesday. As a reminder, these doors were used to block exits and were not intended to be opened, this model already has enough emergency exits in this configuration.

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Boeing personnel removed the bolts

Absence of wear or deformation around specific holes “iindicating that the four bolts preventing the cork holder from moving upwards were missing before it was moved “, argued the NTSB, which collected written documents and photos showing that Boeing employees removed four bolts located in these locations during an inspection at the Renton factory near Seattle (Washington) before the plane’s delivery last October. Five damaged rivets in the aircraft’s cabin An operation was undertaken to replace.Other photos taken after replacing the rivets show that in at least three points, the bolts were not reinstalled.

Prior to the publication of this report, Alaska Airlines had already reported “ Poorly secured equipment » After preliminary investigation. For its part, its rival United Airlines discovered during the investigation, “ Bolts that need to be tightened “

The FAA is highly critical of Boeing

Faced with a series of setbacks for the aircraft in recent months, the new boss of the American Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency (FAA), Mike Whittaker, suggested during his hearing this Tuesday before the subcommittee on aviation of the House of Representatives that it was necessary to strengthen oversight of Boeing. , but also equipment manufacturer Spirit Aerosystems, maker of the fuselage of the 737 MAX.

Mike Whittaker said the FAA plans to permanently post inspectors at Boeing production sites, saying ” The current system is not working “

“I definitely agree that the current system is not working, as it does not provide secure devices. So we need to change that,” he said.

” What matters to me is that Boeing makes safe planes », added the head of the FAA. ” If you don’t have this safety culture, I think it’s hard to build safe planes. »

Since the Alaska Airlines incident, which resulted in no fatalities, the FAA has sent about twenty inspectors to the Renton site to inspect the 737 MAX and another six to the Spirit factory. Six-week audit in Wichita, Kansas. This approach, Mike Whittaker pointed out, breaks with the methods traditionally used by the agency, which were essentially based on studying documents circulated by Boeing. Investigations have not yet revealed any failures requiring immediate action.

Enhanced surveillance

Mike Whittaker said inspectors will regularly monitor Boeing’s operations once the audit is complete. According to him, the January 6 incident raises two questions: what was wrong with the device concerned but ” What is wrong with Boeing’s product? ” ” There have been problems in the past. They do not appear to have been resolved, so we see a need for an increased level of monitoring. “, he said. As a reminder, Boeing has grounded the 737 MAX for months following two fatal accidents in 2019 and 2020 that killed a total of 346 people.

Last Sunday, Boeing indicated that it had been notified by a supplier (Spirit) of a non-compliance problem with a specific 737 fuselage that did not yet require intervention on about fifty copies, without representing an immediate risk to planes in flight. distributed.

Boeing reveals new non-compliance issue on certain 737 MAX fuselages