Boeing has offered a bizarre explanation after a door stopper exploded on one of its planes during an Alaska Airlines flight.
The terrifying incident caused the panel to dramatically detach at 16,000 feet, just minutes after the California-bound plane took off from Oregon.
Some passengers had their clothes and phones sucked in, while others were injured when the gaping hole caused a sudden decompression.
The Jan. 5 ordeal prompted the FAA to ground Boeing’s 737 Max fleet pending a massive investigation, which has so far been hampered by a lack of documentation surrounding the door stopper.
However, Boeing has now curiously stated that missing documentation may be responsible for the situation in the first place.
Boeing has offered a bizarre explanation after a door plug exploded on one of its planes during an Alaska Airlines flight.
The aerospace giant claims that a lack of documentation resulted in the four bolts needed to hold the door in place never being installed. cnn reports.
Preliminary findings from a National Transportation Safety Board investigation first identified that the bolts were missing.
Boeing said two separate groups of employees are responsible for removing and reinstalling the door plug as it moves down the assembly line.
The first group removed the panel to fix the rivet issues, but did not produce a paper trail showing that they had removed the door stopper and bolts needed to do the job.
This meant that when the next group reinstalled the door stopper they believed it was only a temporary hold and the plane would not fly in that state, according to Boeing.
“The door team closes the airplane before it is moved outside, but it is not their responsibility to install the latches,” said Elizabeth Lund, senior vice president of quality for Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit.
Boeing claimed that missing documentation may be responsible for the door panel exploding.
The engineers removed the panel but did not create a paper trail to inform their colleagues, meaning the next people working on the door stopper were unaware that four vital bolts had been removed and needed to be reinstalled.
“The (permanent) reinstatement is done by another team based on paperwork showing what jobs are unfinished,” Lund said. “But there was no paperwork, so no one knew how to follow up.”
And in a terrifying twist, it has since emerged that the plane flew in temporary condition for two months before exploding.
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured and the plane was able to land safely.
But Boeing has since been reprimanded by the NTSB for disclosing the information before its investigation was complete.
The plane maker apologized and defended itself, saying it did so in an effort to “take responsibility.”
The dispute is just the latest setback for the embattled plane maker, which has seen stock prices plunge and orders dry up in the wake of several safety concerns surrounding its 737 Max planes.
These include two accidents in 2018 and 2019 that killed a total of 346 people.
Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, Elizabeth Lund, said the planemaker has slowed production.
Several whistleblowers have also alleged that key protocols were being rushed or bypassed in an attempt to speed up manufacturing.
Boeing has since announced it has slowed the assembly process to prevent planes from moving forward on the assumption that the problems will be fixed in the future.
“We have reduced activity in our factories to make sure this is under control,” Lund said.
