Door Blows Off, FAA Grounds Boeing 737 Max 9

An order by US officials to ground 737 Max 9s for inspection will affect 171 aircraft worldwide.

On Saturday, January 7, 2024, the door panel blew off Alaskan Air flight 1282 en route to Ontario, CA. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Portland. The door was later found in the backyard of a home in suburban Portland.

While there were no immediate injuries listed as “major,” there were several minor injuries, including a young boy whose shirt was ripped off his body when the plane’s cabin depressurized at approximately 16,000 feet after takeoff. The plane landed safely with all 174 passengers and 6 crew members.

Boeing 737 Max jets were grounded worldwide for almost two years after a crash in Indonesia in October 2018 which killed 189 people, and another in Ethiopia five months later, which killed 157 people. The law firm of Katzman, Lampert and Stoll is currently representing plaintiffs in the case of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302.

The Boeing 737 Max was cleared to fly again after Boeing revamped its automated flight-control system that had activated erroneously in both crashes.