authorities found the door of a Boeing 737 Max 9 which had torn off in mid-flight

The American aeronautical authorities announced, Sunday evening, January 7, that they had found the door panel which detached from the cabin of an American company Alaska Airlines plane shortly after takeoff on Friday. The head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said a teacher discovered it in her backyard in the city of Portland, Oregon. “He took a photo. In the photos I can just see the outside of the door panel, the white parts. We don’t see anything else, but we’re going to go get it and start analyzing it.”she clarified.

Examination of this document should help determine the causes of the accident that occurred on a Boeing 737 MAX 9, when it was at an altitude of 5,000 meters. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) “requires immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft before they can return to flight”, she declared on X (formerly Twitter). She added that around 171 planes worldwide would be affected, with each inspection taking four to eight hours. Airlines and safety agencies around the world have grounded some versions of the plane pending checks, and dozens of flights have been canceled following the incident, which caused no injuries. .

These inspections concern 737 MAX 9 models having “the middle door blocked”, according to the FAA directive published on its site. These planes have a door sealed off and hidden by a partition which only reveals a window, according to the NTSB, a configuration offered by Boeing to customers who request it. The European Aviation Safety Agency clarified that no operator in Europe uses the 737 MAX 9 with the technical options concerned.