There are apparently hundreds of planes flying with these door plugs. The thing is on the past these planes were built by Boeing… the good old pre-McDonnell Douglas merge Boeing…
and now the fuselage is outsourced to be built by an outfit called Spirit, to save a few bucks.
Our local paper has an excellent reporter writing about all things Boeing. Here is the latest by Dominic Gates (sorry, paper doesn’t do gift links)::
And here is another article:
United changed our aircraft for my flight home tomorrow. We flew in a 737-900 the same day as the Alaska flight emergency. I would have had a heart attack if that had been our flight.
We were supposed to be heading home Saturday (SFO-IAD) on a United 737-900 Max, some of which have just been grounded. Our flight was coming from Palm Springs to SFO. Never left. Drove four RS from northern CA to catch our flight, then sat in the airport 4.5 hrs before being cancelled altogether. We’re scheduled for the 5 pm flight today on different equipment. Crossing my fingers we get home. Flight arrives after 1 am. Won’t get home much before 3, and I have to pick up the dog from boarding by 11 am Monday (130 mi RT drive).
Got a hotel voucher (we went back to S1’s house instead) and food vouchers. Picked up dinner for everyone.
A good explanation of how 737 with this extra door can be configured for different seating options:
If it hadn’t been dark and I had been looking out our back windows, I could have seen the plane and its missing door panel as they landed!
Alaska Airlines tweeted the following:
For Pacific Northwest Travelers: We’ve been receiving many questions from guests traveling to Texas. Flights on Saturday and Sunday from Seattle to Houston are not impacted. Return flights next week are also not affected.
However, apparently all other Texas airports are up for grabs, as well as connecting flights. Husky fans are up in arms.
That tweet was before they had to re-ground the whole Max-9 fleet. They did that early this morning after they had already inspected and returned some of them to service yesterday. So I’m thinking they thought they could get things back to normal far more quickly than it turns out.
Have you been out looking for the missing door? The NTSB has asked Portland residents to help search for it:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/us/alaska-airlines-faa-plug-door-blown-off-sunday/index.html
Based on that video, it looks like the 737 MAX 9 is the only variant that can have the door plug (false door) installed. Another option is to have a real door installed, but covered up and non-operable. The latter allows conversion of the aircraft to a higher density configuration that requires the door to be operable (requires removing the cover and installing the interior door hardware that can open the door, which is less costly than replacing a door plug with a real door). Of course, there are also options to have fully operable doors installed.
Alaska SFO to DCA was uneventful today.
The door plug was found this evening! And several cell phones have also been found.
Thank goodness. And thank goodness no one on the ground got hurt. Those door plugs are not featherweight!
SFO to IAD was uneventful, albeit 45 minutes late in departing. United gave us food vouchers for that, too. Got home about 10 minutes ago.
Yeah, there is no chance in hell that I get on a 737 Max 9! Our last 5 trips have been to Europe, on Airbus A330’s. When I book air, I look at the equipment, but will REALLY pay attention now!!
Flew in turboprops last year, quick hops Dublin–Glasgow then Edinburgh–Dublin. Had my apprehensions at first about loudness of propellers but once we got off the ground, it was no louder than a “regular” jet. After all, the props are spun by jet engines.
Here are the airlines with 737 MAX 9, and which have the door plugs (false doors) like the one that blew out:
Just got through verifying that D is not scheduled to return to BWI on a Max 9. She’s flying on United 737-900. After much research, United has 4 different 737 variants only one of which is labeled as Max 9.
Whew!
Be careful with that. Ours wasnt billed as a max either but it was and we had the equipment change.
Reservation is on the 18th, so we’ll keep an eye on it.
Hopefully by then all the equipment will have been inspected and be safely back in service!