By Isaiah Miesle, Staff Writer

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) indefinitely extended the grounding of Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes for new security checks, promising the increase of oversight of the manufacturer by auditing the production of the model last Friday. 

The grounding extension came after an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing when a door plug fell off the fuselage panel mid-flight on one of the airline’s Max 9 planes earlier this month.

The administration opened the investigation to determine whether Boeing “failed to ensure (its) completed products conformed to its approved design and were in a condition for safe operation in compliance with FAA regulations,” and stated that it was notified of additional issues with other Max 9 planes after the Alaska Airlines incident.

The FAA’s investigation was prompted by an incident that involved an Alaska Airlines plane departing from Portland, Ore. for Ontario International Airport on Jan. 5. Passengers reported hearing a “loud bang” after the panel broke off the plane at around 16,000 feet altitude shortly after takeoff. The aircraft, which was carrying 174 passengers and six crew members, was able to turn around and land safely in Portland.

There were no major injuries. Aviation experts claim injuries would have been more likely had the incident occurred at a higher altitude.

“This incident should have never happened, and it cannot happen again,” the FAA said.

To begin its investigation, the FAA said that it was mandating further inspections of the fuselage panel — a plug that was meant to cover a hole where an emergency exit could be installed — of 40 Max 9 planes before it would consider returning the jets to service.

Before the announcement, the FAA had been working with Boeing to revise the company’s policies for inspecting the planes.

“Boeing’s manufacturing practices need to comply with the high safety standards they’re legally accountable to meet,” the FAA said in a statement.

Boeing contracts Spirit AeroSystems to manufacture the door plug on the Max 9s. They were the subject of a class action lawsuit last year that alleged “widespread quality failures.” On Spirit AeroSystems’s production line, 50 additional points will be examined in addition to the door plugs for quality checks.

Boeing said that it would also add inspections at its own factory and open their factories to airlines to conduct their own inspections of the manufacturing process. 

The FAA also said that it would audit the production and suppliers of Max 9 planes and were considering having an independent entity certifying the safety of certain aspects of the model. 

The administration had previously ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft with the door plug configuration for inspections, in a decision supported by Boeing. Alaska and United Airlines, which operate the majority of these planes in the U.S., said that they had discovered loose hardware on the panel when conducting inspections on their planes.

“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” United Airlines said. 

A few passengers and one of their family members on the Alaska Airlines flight filed a class action lawsuit against Boeing last Thursday. The claims made was that everyone on the plane deserves some sort of compensation. Some of the compensation would be treatment for health conditions, psychological injuries, cost of canceling of travel plans, missing work trips and lost luggage.

Mark Lindquist, the lawyer representing the passengers, said the FAA was more proactive about opening the investigation about other 737 models following other incidents.

One passenger allegedly had their head jolted back and forth, which caused a concussion, soft tissue injuries in her neck and bleeding in one of her ears.

Dave Calhoun, the CEO of Boeing, promised transparency in the company’s response to the incident, and was “acknowledging our mistake.”