Summary A crew member working on AS1282 noted in an interview with the NTSB that they would never feel safe on a MAX aircraft. On the Alaska Airlines flight earlier this year, there were just seven spare seats onboard, two of which were next to the door plug. Boeing's new CEO acknowledges rebuilding trust will take time.
Just last week, the National Transportation Safety Board published the dialogue of interviews with the crew onboard Alaska Airlines AS1282 . This flight had departed from Portland, Oregon (PDX), en route to Ontario International Airport , California (ONT), and saw the emergency exit door blow out, causing an unexpected, uncontrolled aircraft decompression. Many crew members still traumatized by the event expressed that they still don't feel safe when flying on that aircraft variant.
A terrifying departure from Portland On January 5, earlier this year, the flight departed from Portland International Airport (PDX) and ascended out of the Oregon airport with 171 passengers and six crew onboard. When the door blew out, the plug (a structure installed to replace an optional emergency exit, blew out of the Boeing 737 MAX 9, causing immediate aircraft decompression. The pilot quickly returned to Portland, and a full emergency crew met the aircraft.
All passengers and crew survived the incident, with just three individuals resulting in minor injuries. The NTSB investigation is ongoing; however, a preliminary report on February 6 showed that four bolts intended to secure the door plug were missing. The aircraft was delivered from Boeing to Alaska Airlines just ten weeks before the incident.
Read the latest Boeing news here. Don't feel safe onboard In an interview with the NTSB, a flight attendant with Alaska Aiho was onboard the flight in January and identified they wouldn't feel safe if they were passengers on a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The unnamed cabin crew member made a statement during an interview with the NTSB as part of the ongoing investigation into the flight.
The interview of these crew members took place just three days after the incident; however, it has only been made public. As noted by Business Insider , here are further comments from the crew member: "Just from my personal standpoint and just knowing that was a 10-week-old airplane, I do not feel safe getting on the Max right now. How can we know this will not happen again and this is safe because that should not have happened.
" "All of a sudden, there was just a really loud bang and lots of whooshing air, like the door burst open, it scared the crap out of me." As already identified, Boeing let the aircraft depart the factory, missing the four key bolts required to secure the door plug. Passengers on AS1282 had also recalled fears that they could have been sucked out of the hole and that on the scheduled flight to Ontario, there were just seven spare seats onboard, of which two were located next to the missing door plug when the incident took place at 16,000 feet above the skies near Portland International Airport .
Beoing's new Chief Executive Officer, Kelly Ortberg, has acknowledged the manufacturer's safety concerns; he has also noted: "While we clearly have a lot of work to do in restoring trust, I'm confident that working together, we will return the company to be the industry leader we all expect." The ex-manager is now the executive director at an organization dedicated to informing the public about aviation safety issues..
