The FAA’s investigation of the Alaska incident on a Max 9 737 Max flight reveals an increased interest in the aircraft type when booking a flight

The plane involved was Boeing’s model 9 737 Max—an aircraft a generation on from the model 8s involved in the 2018 and 2019 Boeing crashes that killed 346 people, and which led to nearly 400 Boeing 737 Max 8s being grounded in early 2019 for over 18 months.

Keyes said once the FAA clears the planes to fly — “and assuming no other incidents” — the public’s memory will fade. Within six months, he predicted, few people will be paying attention to the aircraft type when booking a flight.

Kayak, a travel-search site owned by Booking Holdings, said Wednesday that after the blowout on the Alaska flight, it saw a three-fold jump in the number of people filtering their searches to isolate the type of aircraft. The jump — from low numbers, a Kayak spokeswoman acknowledged — led the site to make its airplane-type filter easier to find.

“We will see our way through to that, but we need to know that we are starting from a very anxious moment for our customers,” he told the Boeing employees.

“Moments like this shake them to the bone, just like it shook me to the bone,” he said, adding that Boeing must reassure airlines that the planes are safe.

Boeing, which is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, didn’t allow reporters to attend the event, but it released a four-minute clip in which Calhoun stressed safety and said that Boeing’s airline customers are watching the company’s response to the current crisis.

The door plugs are installed by Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, but investigators have not said which company’s employees last worked on the plug on the ill-fated Alaska plane.

The FAA approved the guidelines developed by Boeing. However, on Tuesday the agency ordered Boeing to revise the instructions based on “feedback received in response.”

The instructions to revise the guidelines were needed after Alaska and United reported finding loose bolts and other problems in the panel doors of many Max 9s that they had begun to inspect.

Bjorn Fehrm concurs that the apparent overlooking of theTightening bolts is significant. “It’s a big issue,” he says. If the screws had not been tightened, they would have been inconsequential, he believes. These bolts aren’t designed to hold in a door plug, he says.

What has the FAA (and what did it tell us about the Alaska Airlines plane) in the wake of the January 6 FAA Flight 1282 crash?

Alaska Airlines won’t fly any of its Boeing MAX 9 planes through Saturday as it waits for new instructions from Boeing and federal officials on how to inspect its fleet, which was the subject of an in-flight incident last week.

“We hope this action provides guests with a little more certainty, and we are working around the clock to reaccommodate impacted guests on other flights,” the airline said on its website.

The FAA grounded the Boeing MAX 9 aircraft in the US due to safety concerns on January 6. There was a check on door plugs installed on the Alaska Airlines plane. On January 9 the FAA said all 737 Maxes with door plugs would remain grounded until the FAA decreed they were safe to return to flight. (Boeing has delivered 214 737 Max 9 jets in total worldwide, but 43 are not under the FAA’s jurisdiction.)

Robert Mann Jr., an independent aviation analyst, wonders if the latest issues with the model 9 are instead related to the supplier or the plane’s manufacturing. He believes the bolt anomalies depicted in the photo, which was shared on X by an editor at Airline Weekly, are unacceptable. If I found that on my car, I would wonder what else was there that was problematic.

When contacted by WIRED, Boeing spokesperson Jim Proulx declined to comment on this, citing an ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Boeing apologized on January 6 for the impact of the crash on their customers and passengers.

Subsequent reporting appears to indicate similar door plug problems on other model 9s. A photograph shared on social media purportedly showed one of United Airlines’ model 9 fleet with screws that weren’t fully screwed into place on door plugs.

A third Boeing MAX has experienced a major issue recently. After Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Oregon on January 5, passengers stared out at the clear air while the plane was still climbing. The viability of this type of plane and the industry’s way of assuring safe flying was raised by the incident.