The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered U.S. airlines to stop using some Boeing 737 Max 9 planes until they are inspected, less than a day after one of those planes lost a chunk of its body in midair “with an extremely loud pop,” terrifying passengers before the jet safely returned to ground.
Those on board Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 described an unnerving experience during the 20 minutes of the flight, which was destined for Ontario, Calif., but returned to Portland International Airport in Oregon on Friday night. As yellow oxygen masks dangled above their heads, a powerful wind tore through a gaping hole that showed the night sky and the city lights below. No one aboard the plane was seriously injured.
A passenger, Vi Nguyen of Portland, said that she woke up to a loud sound during the flight. Then she saw a large hole in the side of the aircraft.
“I open up my eyes and the first thing I see is the oxygen mask right in front of me,” Ms. Nguyen, 22, said. “And I look to the left and the wall on the side of the plane is gone.”
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I’m going to die,’” she added.
The F.A.A.’s order will affect about 171 planes.
While the F.A.A. has yet to publicly discuss the cause of the incident, in its grounding order to the airlines, it asked that they inspect what it called a “mid cabin door plug.” Some of the Boeing 737 Max 9s are configured with fewer seats and, therefore, do not need all the emergency exits originally designed for the plane. The unneeded exits are filled with a plug.
Alaska Airlines confirmed in a statement on Saturday afternoon that it had started inspecting the door plugs and cleared 18 of its 65 Max 9s to return to service. The airline said it expected to complete the inspections in the next few days.
Forrest Gossett, a spokesman for Spirit AeroSystems, said on Saturday that his company installed door plugs on the Max 9s and that Spirit had installed the plug on the Alaska Air flight.
United Airlines has 79 Max 9s in service, more than any other airline, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Alaska’s 65 represent about a fifth of its fleet.
“Safety will continue to drive our decision-making,” the agency’s administrator, Mike Whitaker, said in a statement. The F.A.A. is working with the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading an investigation into the Alaska flight.
United Airlines said on Saturday that it would be suspending the use of certain Boeing 737 Max 9s it operates as a result of the F.A.A.’s order. Of the airline’s 79 Max 9s in service, 33 have already been inspected, the airline said in a statement. The airline said the removal of the planes from service was expected to be the cause of about 60 cancellations on Saturday.
“We are working directly with impacted customers to find them alternative travel options,” the airline said in statement.
The F.A.A. said that the required inspections should take four to eight hours per plane to complete.
Boeing issued a statement shortly after the F.A.A.’s grounding order. “Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers,” Jessica Kowal, a spokeswoman for Boeing, said in the statement. “We agree with and fully support the F.A.A.’s decision to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane.”
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