Expert: Alaska Airlines 737 'fortunate' to lose door at low altitude

The midair blowout that left a Boeing 737 MAX 9 flying with a hole in its fuselage could have had far more severe consequences, an aviation expert has told CGTN.

Six minutes after Alaska Airlines flight AS1282 had taken off from Portland, Oregon, a door plug on the port side separated from the plane, causing an uncontrolled decompression. Only three passengers were injured – but things could have been far worse, said John Strickland, director of aviation advisory firm JLS Consulting. 

"We were certainly fortunate that this accident happened as the aircraft was climbing out of Portland," Strickland told CGTN. "It hadn't reached higher than 16,000 feet [4,900 meters], which is less than half the typical altitude an aircraft of this type would typically cruise at once it's well underway in its flight.

"Had it been higher and the same structural separation has happened with it, the decompression would have been much more forceful, and quite probably passengers would have been sucked out of the aircraft," Strickland said. 

"It would have been also much more difficult for the pilots to maintain control of the aircraft, given the suddenness of that such eventuality."

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National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy reported that a teacher she identified as "Bob" found the door plug, a cover panel used to fill an unneeded emergency exit, from the plane in his Portland back yard over the weekend.

Homendy said it was "very, very fortunate" that the incident had not ended in tragedy.

Boeing shares plunged 8.6 percent in trading on Monday to erase nearly $13 billion in market value, before rebounding slightly following the temporary grounding of some of its best-selling 737 MAX jets by the U.S. aviation regulator.

Alaska Air's shares were down 4.5 percent, while United Airlines, the other U.S. carrier that operates the jet, reversed course from premarket to trade marginally higher at $42.92.

Spirit AeroSystems, which manufactured and initially installed the fuselage part on the brand new MAX 9 jet in question, was down 13.8 percent, deepening the gloom around the supplier recently recovering from a string of quality problems but managed to close the day at $28.20, down from the $31.73 valuation per share it had Friday. 

Other aerospace suppliers also fell, with General Electric, which makes engines for the 737 MAX family through a joint venture with France's Safran (SAF.PA), down 1 percent, while Honeywell lost 1 percent.

A troubled history

Boeing began developing the 737 MAX in August 2011 to try to catch up with European rival Airbus in the lucrative market for single-aisle planes used on short and medium-haul flights. 

By January 2019 it had delivered around 3,507 of the planes, with a further 5,000 on order, skyrocketing the company to a historic high value of $430.35 per share on March 1, 2019. 

However, the company's celebrations didn't last long. Just nine days later, Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302, a new 737 MAX 8 aircraft, crashed into the Java Sea six minutes after take-off, killing all 157 on board. 

By compounding a similar incident five months before involving Lion Air flight JT610 near Addis Ababa, killing all 189 on board, it led to a worldwide grounding of the aircraft for repairs. 

That grounding lasted for 20 months, during which Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion in fines to settle a criminal probe with the US Department of Justice over claims it defrauded regulators overseeing the 737 MAX.

Gradually, airlines have started to buy 737 MAX models again – but this new grounding is the latest chapter in a troubled history.

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