--- title: "Experts Alarmed After Large Piece Blows Off Boeing 737 Mid-Flight" description: "Following a door panel being ripped off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 midflight, US regulators are investigating 171 potentially affected planes." date: "2024-01-08" modified: "2024-01-08" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/piece-blows-off-boeing-737-mid-flight" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Boeing" - "Space" tags: - "737 max" - "airliners" - "boeing" - "the digest" --- # Experts Alarmed After Large Piece Blows Off Boeing 737 Mid-Flight ![Following a door panel being ripped off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 midflight, US regulators are investigating 171 potentially affected planes.]() *\Image: Strawberrvy via Instagram\* ## Terror Flight Last week, passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California experienced the fright of their lives. Shortly after taking off, a substantial piece of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 fuselage [tore off](), causing air to rush out and pressure to drop. Fortunately, all 171 passengers and six crew members on board made it back to the ground largely unscathed after the pilots successfully turned back to land. Now, regulators have kicked off an investigation and grounded 171 of the Boeing commercial airliners to check them for any signs of damage to ensure such an incident won't happen again. Alaska Airlines has also had to cancel hundreds of upcoming flights. "I can't imagine what these passengers experienced," Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University air safety expert Anthony Brickhouse [told *Reuters*](). "The wind would be rushing through that cabin. It was a probably pretty violent situation, and definitely a scary situation." ## MAX Unplugged It's still unclear just how widespread the grounding is. In the US, only Alaska Airlines and United are affected. Nonetheless, it's the last thing Boeing needs, since the company has been struggling with [one crisis after the other over]() in recent years. In early 2019, Boeing [announced]() that it had grounded the entire global fleet of its 737 MAX aircraft following [two fatal crashes](), one in 2018 that killed all 189 people on board, and a second in 2019 that killed 157. The culprit in both crashes turned out to be related to the plane's "enhanced flight control" system that caused the nose of the planes to dip rapidly. In the latest instance, the offending component was a section of the fuselage that in some high-capacity configurations is used as an additional door. In the case of the Alaska Airlines flight, the opening was closed with a "plug door," [per the *BBC*](). The MAX 9 makes up only 220 of the 1,400 MAX jets Boeing has delivered to customers. Most of these planes are owned by US airlines. "We are very, very fortunate here that this didn't end up in something more tragic," National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jennifer Homendy said in a statement. **More on Boeing:** *[Boeing CEO Caught Commuting by Private Jet]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()