The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it has opened an investigation into whether Boeing failed to ensure its 737 Max 9 plane was safe and built according to the agency’s approved design.
The FAA said the investigation stemmed from the loss of a fuselage panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines shortly after takeoff Friday from Portland, Ore., leaving a hole in the side of the passenger cabin. The plane returned to Portland for an emergency landing.
“This incident should never have happened and cannot happen again,” the agency said.
In a letter to Boeing on Wednesday, the FAA said that after the Portland incident, it was made aware of additional problems with other Max 9 planes. The letter did not detail what other issues were reported to the agency. Alaska and United Airlines, which operate most of the Max 9s in use in the United States, said Monday they discovered loose material on the panel while conducting preliminary inspections on their planes.
The new investigation is the latest setback for Boeing, which is one of only two suppliers of large planes to most airlines. The company has struggled to regain public trust after two crashes of 737 Max 8 jets, in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, which killed a total of 346 people.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating why the Max 9 panel, also known as a door plug, flew off. The board tries to determine if there were any missing or misplaced bolts that would prevent the board from moving and opening. The plug is placed where an emergency exit would be if the plane had the maximum number of seats.
No one was seriously injured in the incident, but aviation experts said that if the panel had exploded when the plane was at a higher altitude, the consequences could have been much more serious. Passengers and flight attendants would walk around and might not be able to return to their seats to put on oxygen masks and fasten their seat belts. The Alaska Airline plane was at about 16,000 feet and still climbing when the panel tore off.
Before Thursday’s announcement, the FAA was working with Boeing to revise the company’s guidelines for inspecting 171 grounded Max 9 planes. The revision was announced after Alaska and United Airlines reported loose bolts.
“Boeing’s manufacturing practices must conform to the high safety standards it is legally required to meet,” the FAA said in a statement announcing the investigation.
Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s chief executive, on Tuesday promised transparency in the company’s response to the incident. He also said the company was “recognizing our mistake” without explaining what he was referring to. Boeing declined to elaborate on that remark.
“We will cooperate fully and transparently with the FAA and NTSB in their investigations,” Boeing said in a statement.
United has 79 planes and Alaska has 65, but Alaska had the largest share of ground cancellations because the Max 9 makes up 20 percent of its fleet.
Arjun Garg, former FAA general counsel and acting deputy administrator, said that by notifying Boeing of its investigation, the agency initiated a process that could lead to an enforcement action against the company. In other such cases, the FAA has imposed fines and entered into agreements requiring the companies to make changes to correct problems that regulators have identified.
“At the end of the day, the FAA is interested in keeping people safe, not collecting penalties or anything like that,” said Mr. Garg, now a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington. “They just want to make the system safer.”
Some lawmakers also question whether the FAA made mistakes.
Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington State, the Democrat who leads the Commerce Committee, asked the agency on Thursday to provide the committee with an accounting of its management of manufacturers’ compliance with quality control standards.
“In short, it appears that the FAA’s oversight procedures have not been effective in ensuring that Boeing produces airplanes that are in safe operating condition as required by law and FAA regulations,” Ms. Cantwell said in the letter to the service manager. Mike Whittaker.
The FAA declined to comment on the senator’s letter, saying it would respond directly to Ms. Cantwell.
The attorney representing the families of victims involved in the Max 8 crashes, Mark Lindquist, said the FAA was more proactive than in the past by quickly opening an investigation. He said the FAA will take a much broader look at the Max 9 than the NTSB, which aims to identify the cause of the accidents and make recommendations on how they can be prevented.
“The tone of this announcement indicates that the FAA believes there was a potential for loss of life and the seriousness of Boeing’s quality control issues,” Mr. Lindquist said.
The FAA had to move quickly because it could not afford to have travelers concerned about the safety of Boeing planes, said Robert Mann, a former airline executive who is now an airline industry consultant.
Mr. Mann said the FAA would likely take a hands-on approach to inspecting the Max 9 planes as it did the Max 8. He noted that Steve Dickson, who was then the agency’s administrator and a former airline pilot, flew the maximum 8 before the FAA allowed commercial flights with the jets in late 2020 after they had been grounded for nearly two years.
“This is an acknowledgment of a very long-standing problem and it’s a very public rebuke,” Mr Mann said.
The FAA investigation provides an opportunity for Boeing and the agency to make sure they have determined whether the issues with the Max 9 planes are isolated or systemic, said Billy Nolen, the agency’s former acting administrator. “That’s something they’re not going to know until they go through some of those 171 aircraft,” he said.
Mr. Nolen said the FAA is responsible for ensuring that every part of an aircraft meets the agency’s standards. The fact that airlines have found loose bolts on other Max 9 jets provides reason enough for the agency to launch an investigation.