Boeing to make design changes to prevent future 737 MAX 9 door panel incidents
Boeing said on Tuesday it plans to make design changes to prevent a future mid-air cabin panel blowout, like the one in an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 flight in January that spun the planemaker into its second major crisis in recent years.
Boeing’s senior vice president for quality, Elizabeth Lund said the planemaker is working on design changes that it hopes to implement within the year and then to retrofit across the fleet.
Investigators have said the plug in the new Alaska MAX 9 was missing four key bolts.
“They are working on some design changes that will allow the door plug to not be closed if there’s any issue until it’s firmly secured,” Lund said during the first of a two-day National Transportation Safety Board investigative hearing in Washington.
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Lund’s comments followed questioning on why Boeing did not use a type of warning system for door plugs that the planemaker includes on regular doors that sends an alert if it is not fully secure.
The board also released 3,800 pages of factual reports and interviews from the ongoing investigation.
Boeing has said no paperwork exists to document the removal of four key missing bolts. Lund said Boeing has now put a bright blue and yellow sign on the door plug when it arrives at the factory that says in big letters: “Do not open” and adds a redundancy “to ensure that the plug is not inadvertently opened.” It also has new required procedures if the door plug needs to be opened during production.
Lund and Doug Ackerman, vice president of supplier quality for Boeing, are testifying Tuesday during the hearings scheduled to last 20 hours over two days. Ackerman said Boeing has 1,200 active suppliers for its commercial airplanes and 200 supplier quality auditors.
The hearing is reviewing issues including 737 manufacturing and inspections, safety management and quality management systems, FAA oversight, and issues surrounding the opening and closing of the door plug.
With information from Reuters
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