They need to ground these things until the Jack Welch-trained MBAs figure out what’s going on.
If you don’t see the photo, just click on the gray box. The guy who posted the picture called this the “mid-aft door”, but I don’t see any signage saying it’s an emergency exit.
Looks like a door blew out. Different picture from outside of the plane at this link. Scroll down.
Here’s another article saying its an Emergency Door. Those rows of seats are really close together for it to be an Exit Row. Maybe that’s another Jack Welch-trained problem?
I like the part where it says it “sucked the shirt off the child” sitting in the middle seat. Luckily the window seat was unoccupied, or they’d be retrieving a headless torso.
Good Lord!
intercst
An Emergency Door doesn’t “blow out” since it’s larger than the door frame. When you open an Emergency Exit, you’re supposed to turn the door sideways and then throw it out of the plane so it doesn’t interfere with the evacuation. It looks like at the minimum, they lost both the Emergency Door and the door frame.
intercst
A little clarification from what I could figure out from the Simple Flying article above.
That is a “hidden” door in the structure of the plane. When the seating layout stays under a certain number of seats (probably with a first class and a business class along with the cattle class), the plane only needs 3 doors on each side. So this location is covered up and looks like an ordinary bit of windows. It is not an emergency exit.
But switch to an all cattle class and now you have too many passengers for 3 doors per side and you need this fourth door. So the actual door is installed in this location.
Apparently, if an airline wants to change the seating layout, they can have Boeing switch between door and no door as needed. That adds a bit of flexibility to the plane’s capabilities.
In this plane, there was no door there, just a set of windows. Hence the confusion of calling it a door and a window at the same time.
Seeing as it was a fairly new plane (about 3 months old), seems like some kind of error on the assembly line. I’m sure the investigation will get to the bottom of things and lets us know if this was a one-off error or a design flaw. Neither will look good on an already battered Boeing.
–Peter
Alaska Airlines said Friday night they are grounding all 65 B737 Max aircraft in their fleet until each can be inspected.
intercst
Inspecting the picture it seems the whole panel with door, window, and signage got sucked out. Compare…
The Captain
As ptheland explained, it’s a false door, not a real emergency exit. They just put a plug with a regular airline window in the door frame and panel over the opening.
intercst
Looks horrible!
The most important thing in flights is passenger safety.
Of course, comfort is important to everyone, but such a thing is unthinkable.
It is a miracle that the incident ended safely.
Unthinkable of course there would be any link to earlier cost reduction measures promoted by those same MBAs.
Apparently passengers now have to worry about shoddy quality controls in addition to design flaws with this series. Hey, but it’s a commercial success, right?
SB
(wondering if the plane will be grounded beyond Alaskan)
I am hoping so. I flew on one last week and scheduled to fly again next week, both on United.
It’s a marketing problem. Advertise: additional elbow and leg room, no extra cost!
Yes, let’s.
In the photo you posted (of an over wing exit), you can clearly see the wing out the window
In the photo of the damaged plane, there is no wing. Other photos of the damage show the hole somewhat aft of the wing.
–Peter
Planes do have parts come off in flight, and that does predate the Welchists taking over at Boeing.
Remember the 73 in Hawaii?
Or the 74 that lost a cargo door on the way to Hawaii?
I’m learning more and am going to back away from this statement. It looks like the modification Boeing makes for the door/no-door option is less comprehensive than I first thought. It looks like the door remains in place, but is somehow de-activated. On the interior, it is covered with panels and not identified as a door.
Here’s a photo of the 737 MAX 9. At the front and rear, you can clearly see two of the doors. Over the wing, you see two windows with rings around them. Those are the over-wing exits. About 1/2 way between those wing exits and the rear door you’ll notice one window with a larger space between it and it’s neighbors. There’s also a faint outline above the window. I believe that is the door that was de-activated in this incident aircraft.
As I spend a lazy Saturday morning falling down an internet rabbit hole, I came across this video. It shows what options are available for this door from Boeing, a bunch of less interesting information (for me at least) on the safety interlocks and cockpit warnings, and then at the end a brief discussion of what was installed in the incident aircraft. (It was the door plug.)
And with that, I will attempt to reboot myself and get on to something productive around the house.
–Peter
Haven’t checked but suspect for this to happen to a 2-months old plane to mark a record of some sort.
I’m pretty sure that we’ll find that the door plug was installed by Spirit Aerosystems of Wichita, Kansas. A cut-rate subcontractor beloved by Jack Welch-trained MBAs.
intercst
One more follow up - another video from the 737 tech guy going into more details of the door plug option for the 737 MAX 9.
Do what Shiny management always does: blame a “rogue underling”.
Steve
