US NTSB opens hearing on Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX cabin panel blowout

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The US National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday is questioning key witnesses from Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems and the Federal Aviation Administration on the mid-air cabin panel blowout of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 door plug in January. During the start of its two-day investigative hearing, the board released 3,800 pages of factual reports and interviews from the ongoing investigation.

The incident badly damaged Boeing's reputation and led to the MAX 9 being grounded for two weeks, a ban by the FAA on expanding production, a criminal investigation and the departure of several key executives. Boeing has vowed to make key quality improvements.

Boeing's senior vice president for quality, Elizabeth 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.

Lund said Tuesday Boeing is still building "in the 20s" for monthly MAX production - far fewer MAXs than the 38 per month it is allowed to produce. "We are working our way back up. But at one point I think we were as low as eight," Lund told the NTSB.

A flight attendant described a moment of terror when the door plug blew out. "And then, just all of a sudden, there was just a really loud bang and lots of whooshing air, like the door burst open," the flight attendant said. "Masks came down, I saw the galley curtain get sucked towards the cabin."

Terry George, senior vice president and general manager for Boeing Program at Spirit AeroSystems, and Scott Grabon, a senior director for 737 quality at Spirit, which makes the fuselage for the MAX, also testified Tuesday.

Last month Boeing agreed to buy back Spirit AeroSystems, whose core plants it spun off in 2005, for $4.7 billion in stock.

The hearing will review 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.

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."

In June, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said the agency was "too hands off" in its oversight of Boeing before January. FAA employees told the NTSB that Boeing employees did not always followed required processes. Jonathan Arnold, Aviation Safety Inspector at the FAA, said a systemic issue he witnessed at Boeing's factory was employees not following the instructions.

"That seems to be systemic where they deviate from their instructions. And typically, tool control is what I see most," Arnold said.

The interviews also addressed questions of factory culture, which has been under fire in Congressional hearings. Whistleblowers have alleged that Boeing retaliated against people coming forward with safety concerns on the factory floor.

Boeing's former overall head of quality Carole Murray disclosed Boeing was under pressure from regulators to simplify its processes, whose complexity she likened to a "fireworks show".

"If you map out our documentation right now, it kind of looks like a fireworks show, and we've been told by our regulators and our teams that our processes are complicated. And it's going to take significant effort to go change that because they're so intertwined," she told the NTSB.

Also in June, the NTSB said Boeing violated investigation rules when Lund provided non-public information to media and speculated about possible causes.

Last month, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a fine of at least $243.6 million to resolve a Justice Department investigation into two 737 MAX fatal crashes.

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US NTSB opens hearing on Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX cabin panel blowout

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