Boeing shares fell on Monday after US investigators announced they had located the door that exploded from Alaska Airlines' Boeing 737 Max plane mid-flight on Friday.
The door stopper — a “key item” for investigators — was found in a Portland resident's backyard Sunday night, according to Jennifer Homendy, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent U.S. government agency responsible for investigating civil transportation accidents.
The Alaska Airlines flight was carrying 171 passengers and six crew members when it was involved in a mid-flight accident, with part of the fuselage torn off. All on board landed safely in Portland, Oregon.
On Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates US airlines, ordered the temporary grounding of about 737 Max 9 aircraft operated by US airlines or on US soil, while the National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation into the accident.
Boeing shares fell 8 percent to $229 in pre-market trading Monday morning, as investors assessed the potential financial impact of the latest hit to the manufacturer.
Homendy said pilots reported stress warnings on three flights in the month before the accident. She said these incidents were described to the National Transportation Safety Board as “benign” and it was not clear whether the previous warning lights had anything to do with Friday's accident.
“But this is definitely a concern and we want to delve into it,” she added.
Alaska Airlines had placed restrictions on the plane preventing it from flying on long overseas flights, such as flights to Hawaii, so it could quickly return to the airport if necessary. The carrier also ordered additional maintenance on the light, which had not been completed at the time of the accident, Homendy said.
Photos and videos shared by passengers on social media show part of the plane's sidewall, a missing window and oxygen masks deployed.
Homendy described the situation on board the plane after the door seal exploded as “chaos” and described extensive damage inside the plane, including bent seats and torn tray tables. “My impression when I saw it was that it had to be a terrifying event,” she said.
Boeing called a company-wide safety meeting on Tuesday to discuss its response to the accident.
CEO David Calhoun, who will host the meeting from the Renton, Wash., plant where the Max is assembled, said the meeting will reinforce the company's focus on safety.
“When serious incidents like this occur, it is extremely important for us to understand and address the causes of the event and ensure it does not happen again,” he said in a memo to staff on Sunday.
The accident occurred at an altitude of about 16,000 feet and just 10 minutes into the flight, the NTSB said. There was no one in the two seats next to the malfunctioning exit cabin door that exploded, leaving a large hole in the fuselage.
Although often used as an additional exit on more dense low-cost airlines, the door is permanently attached on Alaska Airlines aircraft.
“The most surprising thing to me is that the door has opened,” said John Cox, a retired pilot and CEO of Safety Operating Systems, an aviation safety consulting firm. He noted that other types of aircraft similarly use doors, adding: “I don't know of any case where this has happened before.”
Given that the plane was only two months old, investigators will look “in great detail at the assembly records and quality assurance inspections of this part of the plane,” Cox said.
Homendy said Saturday that while the investigation is focused on the Alaska Airlines incident and not the broader Boeing Max fleet, “we will go where the investigation takes us.”
The accident is the latest blow to Boeing, which has struggled with manufacturing defects in the 737 and has continued to weather the fallout from a 20-month global ban imposed by regulators after two fatal crashes five months apart in 2018-19.
The space group said in a statement on Saturday that it supports the temporary suspension.
“Safety is our top priority,” Boeing said. “We agree with and fully support the FAA's decision to request immediate inspections of 737-9 aircraft in the same configuration as the affected aircraft.”
There are 215 Max 9 aircraft in service globally, according to data from aviation consultancy Cirium. The largest airlines are United Airlines and Alaska Airlines in the United States, and Turkish Airlines and Copa Airlines in Panama.
Cuba said it had temporarily suspended the flights of 21 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft. The Turkish company said it had withdrawn its small fleet of five Max 9 aircraft.
Alaska Airlines canceled 21 percent of its flights on Sunday, while United canceled 8 percent, according to aviation data site FlightAware. Cuba and Aeromexico reported cancellations of 14 and 11 percent, respectively.
Garth Thompson, president of the United Airlines unit of the Airline Pilots Association, said that while the union was pleased that regulators acted cautiously, he had not yet heard of inspections finding a similar problem on another plane. “We hope this is a one-time event,” he added.
The EU Aviation Safety Agency said it had adopted the FAA's emergency directive but that this was “a precautionary measure as we have learned from the FAA and Boeing that there are currently no European airlines in the agency's member states operating aircraft in the affected configuration.”
Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said on Saturday that because there are no UK-registered 737 MAX 9 aircraft, “the impact on UK-operated aircraft and consumers is minimal.” The agency said it had written to all foreign and non-UK airlines “to request confirmation that inspections will be carried out prior to any operation in UK airspace”.
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