Summary
- Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 experienced a blowout of a door plug, causing rapid decompression and a diversion.
- The voice recorder for the aircraft was wiped, stopping investigators from accessing crucial communication data.
- The NTSB has been advocating for an extension of the minimum recording time on aircraft to 25 hours, however the FAA has cited cost as the rationale for not implementing it.
Over the weekend, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 diverted resulting from a blowout of a door plug for an emergency exit, resulting in cabin depressurization. As with every investigation, the voice recorder, or black box, must be analyzed. But with this incident, there’s one problem: the information from the voice recorder was wiped.
Breaking: Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 Diverts Due To Sudden Loss Of Emergency Exit Door
The sudden lack of the deactivated exit door led to rapid decompression and compelled a diversion.
Missing voice recorder data
Since Friday night, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 has made several headlines, from the unique incident to the grounding of MAX 9s by the airline, then the FAA, the door being present in someone’s backyard in Oregon, and United finding loose bolts on five of its MAX 9s. On Sunday, it was discovered that the voice recorder for the aircraft had been wiped, and investigators hoping to learn more in regards to the incident through communications will now not find a way to accomplish that.
On Sunday night, during a press conference, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chair Jennifer Homendy said,
“There may be nothing on the cockpit voice recorder. Since 2018, we’ve had we’ve done 10 investigations where the CVR was overwritten.”
How did this occur?
Cockpit voice recorder data in the USA must only be kept for 2 hours after a flight. For the information to be kept longer, a circuit breaker must be pulled within the cockpit to forestall the automated removal of the information. On AS1282, the pilots didn’t pull the circuit breaker, resulting in the information being erased.
Photo: Nicole Kylie | Easy Flying
For years, the NTSB, an independent agency accountable for investigating civil transportation incidents and accidents, has pushed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to increase the minimum recording time on aircraft to 25 hours. Twenty-five hours is standard in Europe and a number of other countries worldwide, however the FAA has pushed back, citing costs as the rationale for not extending.
Voice recordings are essential to investigations, especially near misses, several of which have occurred over the past year-and-a-half in the USA. Since a virtually catastrophic incident in San Francisco in 2018, the NTSB has made a big push for this extension, as data from the voice recorder was lost, and greater than 1,000 lives might have been lost that day.
Homendy added,
“Cockpit voice recorders aren’t just convenient for the NTSB to make use of in investigations. They’re critical to helping us accurately pinpoint what was happening, and it’s key to safety.”
What’s the newest?
Yesterday afternoon, United Airlines announced that following inspections from its TechOps teams, loose bolts had been discovered on five aircraft. The airline is having teams of 5 perform the inspections and is awaiting FAA guidance on the total inspection process.
Breaking: United Airlines Discovers Loose Bolts On Boeing 737 MAX 9
The loose bolts were found by the FAA-mandated inspections following a door plug blowout aboard an Alaska Airlines flight.
Last night, the NTSB held one other press conference through which it shared an in depth timeline of what happened on Friday night when the door blew out. David Slotnick of The Points Guy shared a thread on X. There may be more information on David’s thread.
Last night, it was also discovered that the cockpit door is designed to open within the event of depressurization. The flight crew was unaware of this, as Boeing didn’t disclose it within the aircraft manual.