Alaska Airlines flight attendant says she currently feels “unsafe” on the Boeing 737 MAX

Summary

A crew member working on AS1282 stated in an interview with the NTSB that he would never feel safe on a MAX aircraft.
On the Alaska Airlines flight earlier this year, there were only seven empty seats on board, two of them next to the door plug.
Boeing’s new CEO admits it will take time to restore trust.

Just last week, the National Transportation Safety Board published dialogue from interviews with the crew on board the Alaska Airlines AS1282 This flight departed from Portland, Oregon (PDX) and was en route to Ontario International Airport California (ONT), and saw the emergency exit door fly out, causing an unexpected, uncontrolled decompression of the aircraft. Many crew members, still traumatized by the event, said they still do not feel safe flying on this aircraft variant.

A frightening farewell from Portland

On January 5 of this year, the flight took off from Portland International Airport (PDX) and departed the Oregon airport with 171 passengers and six crew members on board. When the door was blown out, the plug (a structure installed to replace an optional emergency exit) flew out of the Boeing 737 MAX 9, causing the aircraft to decompress immediately. The pilot quickly returned to Portland, and a full emergency crew met the aircraft.

An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 with a blown out door plug.

Photo: NTSB

All passengers and crew survived the incident, with only three people suffering minor injuries. The NTSB investigation is ongoing, but a preliminary report dated February 6 showed that four screws securing the door stopper were missing. The plane was returned by Boeing to Alaska Airlines just ten weeks before the incident.

I don’t feel safe on board

In an interview with the NTSB, an Alaska Aiho flight attendant who was on board the flight in January said they would not feel safe if they were passengers on a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The unnamed cabin crew member said in an interview with the NTSB as part of the ongoing investigation into the flight. The interview with these crew members took place just three days after the incident; however, it has only now been made public. As Business Insider noted, here are more comments from the crew member:

“Just from my personal perspective and knowing that this was a 10-week-old airplane, I don’t feel safe getting on the Max right now. How do we know that this won’t happen again and that this is safe, because this shouldn’t have happened.”

“Suddenly there was just a really loud bang and a lot of hissing air, like the door was bursting open. I was scared to death.”

As previously noted, Boeing allowed the aircraft to leave the factory without the four key bolts required to secure the door stopper. Passengers on AS1282 had also recalled fears that they might have been sucked out of the hole, and that on the scheduled flight to Ontario, there were only seven empty seats on board, two of which were next to the missing door stopper, when the incident occurred at 16,000 feet in the sky near Portland International Airport .

Beoing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, acknowledged the manufacturer’s safety concerns and also stated:

“While we clearly still have a lot of work to do to restore trust, I am confident that together we can return the company to being the industry leader we all expect.”