Alaska Airlines flight forced to make emergency landing at PDX after a panel on side of the plane blew out

Monday noon, and the FAA is thanking Portland teacher "Bob" for sending them in a picture of the door in his yard. They intend to go and pick it up later today,along with 2 cell phones found nearby, believed to be from passengers on the plane.
I sure hope there is a finders fee for Bob.

Boeing has lost the plot. Pushed by ex GE execs they broke the winning ecosystem in Seattle, moved the head office and set up a manufacturing facility on the east coast, to avoid unionized labor. Imagine the headcount cost per unit in a product sold for many millions of dollars, not too significant. Their motivation was to look good on Wall Street keeping those stock options moving. Sad story.

Agree,The drive to airport is more dangerous than flight,especially if impacted by a 240 lb door plug with 25 ft of metallic furnace tape. (Thw FAA approved type)

Go to a single fleet type, they said. The A321 NEO's are nothing but trouble, they said. The 737 MAX is the answer, they said.

The MAX was and is a mistake that has been nothing but an over engineered safety nightmare. Time for both Boeing and Alaska to clean out their exec offices, and it's time for the world to move on from the MAX. History is going to think everyone was crazy for continuing to defend a machine that spends more time grounded than flying.

Boing should have never dropped the 757's
They are trying to do too much to the 737.

I came here for the comments and not the article; I am not disappointed. Members here have fleshed this out better than the media. Thank you!

Those of you who are pilots, how safe is it to fly the 737-Max? We are United flyers and I’m concerned. Do I trust United to make th necessary safety calls?

Knowing how those Panels and Doors fit... It is difficult to image how that panel blew out.. Will be interesting to see the final report of the Root Cause!

Boeing needs to go back and built a 757-NEO and a 767-NEO and stop trying to stretch the 737 into oblivion

The difficulty for Boeing is that they do not appear to have moved on from the disastrous crashes of their 737-MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019 which resulted in the deaths of nearly 350 people. Had the Alaska Airlines flight attained normal cruising altitude then the loss of the door plug would have (in all probability) created a far more serious situation with the possible total loss of the aircraft and all on board.
At the very least in raises a host of new questions about Boeing's quality control as well as their manufacturing processes. 737-MAX deliveries have already suffered massive delays due to electrical problems and just last year to non-compliant fittings. Loose or missing bolts will not be seen as 'type specific' and do nothing for client confidence in them as a manufacturer.
Airlines looking to place new orders for their fleets will be watching customer preference very carefully and I suggest that those that do stay with Boeing will be squeezing every last penny or cent that they can out them for their loyalty. Hardly helpful for Boeing given their current financial status.
Of course, not only will Boeing have to come up with answers for their customers but equally they will need to satisfy the regulators and that, I suspect, will be the most difficult

Coming home to roost / for inspection. Flightaware search for aircraft type B39M shows seven (7) of the type airborne Sunday Jan 7 at 1710z hours. Interestingly, 4 of the 7 are Copa Air, the Panama based airline partly owned by United Airlines USA. Headed for home base Tocumen PTY / MPTO

Did Boeing hire a bunch of laid off RV workers? The quality of construction seems parallel.

The official announcements neglect the fact that this was a MAX. The CEO keeps referring to it as 737-9.

https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/operations/as-1282/

Parfait, j’adore cette application, je recommande vivement 😊

Is significant weight saved by blanking rather than just going with the type 1 plug door?

That something like this can happen is incomprehensible to me.

This FAA directive now grounds 215 MAX planes from multiple fleets. Betcha Icelandic is looking for some 757s now.

From what I have read the "door" came out at ~16,000 feet...just imagine what we would be seeing if if came out at +30,000 feet!

Air pressure at 16,000 ft is roughly 8 psi while only 4.4 psi at 30,000 ft!

united uses and flies the 737 max..it has taken all of theirs out of service for inspection,and it was noted on local news here as ual is huge in my city,that they are finding loose bolts on those specific panels..thank goodness the plane was only 6 minutes into the flight and no one was seated by that "door plug"..to me it just brought back old news stories of the dc -10's when they had problems with the cargo doors coming off in flight,as well as an old 737 (i believe it was hawaiian airlines)where a large section of the top fuselage blew off in flight ,or the 747 (united) that lost a portion of the first class cabin in a flight to hawaii..its a miracle no one was killed, and the only injury was the young man who had his shirt ripped off,but was not sucked out of the hole..

The linked a article cannot be viewed from Europe ... tryhttps://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/when-hole-opened-on-alaska-flight-1282-a-mom-held-tight-to-her-son/ for dome info

Better report here:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-safety-board-investigating-alaska-airlines-boeing-737-max-9-emergency-landing-2024-01-06/

All of this might go away if they just started to jail CEO's and senior management committee members responsible for some of the decisions made in corporations. (I recently saw a new video about the DC10 rear cargo door criminal behavior by MD - where they received a slap on the wrist by making the conscious decision not to completely fix those doors and killed all the passengers on the Turkish DC10 out of Paris. Sad)

A320, A330, A350 - great planes . If given a choice I would choose airbus and would think twice before flying a MAX.

Boeing seems destined to run out of time and luck in the very near-future. They need to "stand down" and shut all production down for a few weeks and get re-focused. SHUT IT DOWN, BOEING!

I was catching a ride to work once with a crew on a brand new 800 and the Captain said more than once he believed the legalizing of marijuana in Washington state just might have something to do with all the maintenance squawks they were getting on all of their new 737s. At the time I thought it was just off the cuff humor but now maybe he was right! Having had a good career in both the Boeing and Airbus aircraft however, I'd still have to pick the Boeings...

Looks like an exit row door, but weird location.
Sites are saying everything from a window to a panel blew off.
Guess we'll find out in about a year.

Driving to the airport is by far more dangerous than flying. Boeing seems to be having some engineering and assembly issues that need to be addressed. The airlines have very little to do with these safety issues.Pilots are well trained to deal with most any operational issues in the air as seen with this event.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/06/us/alaska-airlines-window-landing/index.html

CNN picture definitely shows a whole panel missing. As it's a MAX9, I'm sure it's going to attract more attention than it should.

ANY ONE KNOW HOW MANY FLIGHTS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO THE 737 MAX GROUNDING?

Fro will be the death of us all. I want the best people hired.

Not clear to me...is there another 'plug' on the opposite side of the MAX-9?
Also reading (Reuters) that Spirit Aero manufactured the plug. However Boeing I assume actually installed it. I'm sure the weight savings of a 'plug' versus having the original actual door makes a difference. Seating arrangements were considered.

There is mention of two latches at the bottom of these plugs, used for inspection? What is the likely hood these 'latches' played a role in the loss of this plug?
The finding of this plug should identify some reasonable understanding of this failure. Maybe, do without the plugs and install the original doors for strength.

https://twitter.com/petemuntean/status/1743487804133253264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1743487804133253264%7Ctwgr%5E832eff2f4042215b7072d4371511b2364705c412%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stuff.co.nz%2Ftravel%2Fnews%2F301036247%2Falaska-airlines-7379-max-makes-emergency-landing-after-window-and-chunk-of-fuselage-blow-out-soon-after-takeoff

...looks like the sewer is backing up again....

I'm afraid it's gonna take a few "spectacular" crashes in the airline industry to really get the attention of the American public. How many planes need to fall out of the sky before someone says the obvious... "why did we have to hire "incompetent" people? Oh, the DEI rule!

DEI