Four days after a section of the fuselage suddenly detached as an Alaska Airlines plane was taking off, United Airlines reported Monday its inspectors discovered several “instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug,” including bolts needing additional tightening.
United Airlines said it has been inspecting its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to make sure they are safe to fly as federal investigators continued to investigate Friday’s near-disaster aboard an Alaska Airlines plane.
The announcement from United came a day after National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy reported they had found a missing door plug that could be key to the investigation of the midair accident in the backyard of a home of a Portland, Oregon, teacher identified only as “Bob.”
The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday grounded 171 of the Boeing 737 Max 9 planes worldwide so they could be inspected. United said it has 79 of the aircraft.
On Sunday, the NTSB reported that Alaska Airlines had previously restricted this particular plane from long flights over water, specifically to Hawaii, because an air pressurization alert light that had illuminated during three prior flights, twice in the days leading up to Friday.
But aviation experts told NBC News on Monday that based on the information provided thus far by federal authorities the light was going off as the result of a computer glitch of some kind and not indicating there was a mechanical problem on the plane.
“It’s not unusual in the aviation world for there to be issues with warning lights and most of the time the issue is with the warning light itself,” Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB investigator. “It’s not like Alaska Airlines ignored it. The fact that it restricted this plane from making flights over water while they were looking into this warning lights issue points to a robust safety culture.”
John Cox, who weighs-in regularly on aviation issues for NBC News, agreed.
“The pressurization system, from what I’ve read, was acting normally,” said Cox, who said he flew Boeing 737’s for 15 years. “This appears to be more a censor problem. But Alaska Airlines, being a conservative airline, said this has happened a couple times now and we need to look into, but let’s not do that over the Pacific Ocean.”
The NTSB has said those alerts will be part of its investigation into what caused the door plug to blow off midflight.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
