US aviation authority grounds 171 Boeing jets after blowout | DW News

Us authorities have ordered the grounding and inspection of 171 Boeing planes the US Air giant is under heavy scrutiny over the safety of its popular 737 Max 9 aircraft the order comes after a fuselage panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight in midair leaving a

Gaping hole in the side of the plane it landed safely with no major injuries from inside the cabin a passenger captures the moment just after the giant hole appears the mood is relatively calm but some of those on board are using oxygen masks to breathe this wasn’t even the emergenc the lights

Go out as the Alaska Airlines flight tries to make an emergency landing an audio recording captures a tense few minutes as crew members try to bring the plane with more than 170 people on board safely back down to earth as here we’ll have to go down or Seattle Alaska 1282 we just press

We’re declaring imurgency we need to desend down to 10,000 I didn’t even know we took off honestly and then yeah I’m sleeping and I just feel the plane Drop and it wasn’t like any other turbulence just because the masks had came down too so that’s when I knew like oh gosh this is

Something way different um and yeah I started freaking out it’s not yet known what caused part of the plane’s fuselage to fall off just after to takeoff but investigators say the situation could have been a lot worse had the aircraft reached its cruising altitude the uh aircraft was around

16,000 ft and only 10 minutes out from the air from uh the airport when the door blew fortunately they were not at Cruise altitude of 30,000 or 30,000 35,000 Fleet Feet think about what happens when you’re in Cruise everybody’s up and walking folks don’t have seat bels on uh

They’re going to uh restrooms the flight attendants are providing service to passengers we could have end up with ended up with something so much more tragic the US Airline regulator has ordered the grounding and inspection of some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets in the wake of the incident affected more than 170 aircraft

Worldwide and joining us now for inside on this is Stephen Wright a professor of aircraft systems at tambur University in Finland uh thank you for joining us I just want to ask you what did you first think when you heard news of this incident well I thought that the the

Event sounded rather unusual um it’s not often that you hear about holes appearing on aircraft um um that said this sort of event has happened before and when it’s happened previously specifically to British Airways in 1990 it was because the wrong siiz bolts were used to hold a window in that

Wasn’t a structural member of the aircraft so um you know this this stuff sort of stuff can happen but it seems very unusual and this plane uh on which this curred was brand new only 10 weeks old uh how how could this have happened do you

Think well it it it doesn’t really make much sense to me um the plane’s brand new as you say it’s fresh out the factory uh understand it’s been delivered and then it’s um it hasn’t been used very much by the operator and it’s only um in this early

Phase that um uh something has catastrophically happened happen to the aircraft so the question that I’m asking myself is because it’s so new and it hasn’t been through the airline’s usual maintenance this to me indicates something happening from the factory something that hasn’t been picked up it’s latent it’s hidden and why would

You go looking for it when you believe that it’s perfectly fine and us Regulators have ordered the grounding of 170 of these planes what do you think they will be looking for well from my um understanding I suspect they’re going to require uh uh Engineers licensed Aircraft engineers to

Uh to inspect these um these fastening plates effectively their covers are covering this door option and they’re going to want to make sure the the correct fastenings are in are used they’re also going to want to make sure sure that the correct torque specification for these bolts has been applied which is relatively

Straightforward to check and the requirement is for this check to take place before uh the next flight so until they actually do this check and then sign some paperwork and report back to Boeing that it’s been done these planes won’t be taking off in America at this

Time and just a final last quick question if I may these new boeings the 737 Max 9 and I believe eight have had a number uh of problems the previous ones uh engine uh failures um is there something wrong with the way the Americans are allowing their planes to

Fly I guess it’s early days but do you see some of that here possibly um I don’t know about allowing it to fly I think the problem here is that um with the the max series Boeing made um a corporate decision on uh some sensors uh which were necessary for this

As you say this larger much more powerful engine um and then they didn’t tell anybody about how the sensors worked and you know when it goes wrong what it should do so Pilots just weren’t able to respond to it yeah it’s problematic okay professor of Aviation Stephen Wright thanks so much thank you

US authorities have ordered the grounding and inspection of 171 Boeing planes. The US air giant is under heavy scrutiny over the safety of its popular 737 Max 9 aircraft. The order comes after a fuselage panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight in midair, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane. It landed safely with no major injuries.

0:00 Intro & report
2:35 DW speaks with aviation expert Stephen Wright

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#Boeing #AlaskaAirlines #Blowout

27 comments

  3. just don't fly the 737 MAX anymore happened one, two and third time. That plane is junk for sure, it kill a lots of people before….

  8. Funny how main stream news is not talking about the Boeing request to FAA for exemption from safety standard on 737 Max planes just days before the incident.

  10. A nightmare company Boeing has become. A great company of the past is now a disaster company. They should scrap all new Boeing 737 max aircraft based on an old design in my opinion. A successful aircraft the 737 but they have created the problem for themselves, probably because of rival airbus introducing similar successful aircraft. They have introduced the 737 max aircraft too soon without too much testing that has resulted in the problem for themselves.

  12. I love Alaska Airlines but I guess I'm switching to Delta and trying to get on an Airbus. I hate Boeing.

  13. Say what you will about frontier but they have the newest fleet of Airbus. I judt flew 1/3/24 on a brad new A321 neo launched December of 2023. On frontier. I literally dont worry a moment on their planes. The pilots are always perky and friendly and alert. Soft landings. And that's where the compliments end. But the plane is safe. That's all i can say. I wouldn't step foot on a 737 ANYTHING. ever. Life or death im not going on a 737 737 max anything.

  18. Before its fusion with McDonnell Douglas, Boeing was a successful and trustful company run by engineers.
    Since then the company is run by excel sheet managers, what else to expect?

  20. I can only imagine how many champagne bottles are being opened at the Airbus headquarters after these recent 737 issues…

  22. Chrysler can have loose bolts.
    Ford can have loose bolts.
    GM can have loose bolts.
    BOEING CAN NOT HAVE LOOSE BOLTS!!!
    Boeing used to be run by engineers. Now Boeing is run by accountants. Safety is not a word accountants know how to spell. Safety is a byword that engineers live by.

  23. 0:38 "the lights go out as the Alaska airlines tries to make an emergency landing"… They turn off the lights on literally every flight when it's dark and you're landing so your eyes adapt. Always news people trying to make things so dramatic 😒

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