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| An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft. (Source: Getty) |
The FAA said it is requiring immediate inspections of approximately 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft before they can fly again. The inspections will take between four and eight hours for each aircraft. The FAA said safety is the basis for its decisions.
The decision was made a day after Alaska Airlines decided to suspend flights of all 65 of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, following an incident with Alaska Flight 1282 carrying 171 passengers and 6 crew members.
The plane departed from Portland International Airport, Oregon, on the evening of January 5 and returned after just 20 minutes because a window on the fuselage burst, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.
According to data from the flight tracking website FlightAware, the plane climbed to 15,000 feet (4,876 m) and then began to descend. Images posted on social media later showed a window on the plane gone, while emergency oxygen masks were deployed.
The US National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team of experts to Portland to examine the plane, while both the FAA and Alaska Airlines said they are investigating the incident.
According to an announcement on January 6 by Alaska Airlines, more than a quarter of the airline's MAX 9 aircraft have been inspected and no serious problems have been found.
Following the Alaska Airlines incident, United Airlines has also temporarily grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft for inspections as required by the FAA. These two airlines own the world's largest MAX 9 fleet.
On the same day, Turkish Airlines announced that it would stop operating 5 of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft for inspection.
Boeing has so far delivered 218 737 MAX 9 aircraft to airlines around the world.
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