The airline’s engineers had called for the plane to undergo a rigorous maintenance check on January 5 to determine why the warning lights were triggering based on their use of “a predictive tool” rather than on the number of times the warning lights had gone off,the airline said.
While it kept the plane in service,the airline did put restrictions on it following the recommendation of the engineers. It restricted the plane from flying long-haul routes over water,like to Hawaii,or remote continental areas in case of the need for an emergency landing.
‘When jurors find out[the airline had] actually been cautioned by engineers to ground the plane,and they put it into commercial rotation instead,jurors will be more than mystified — they’ll be angry.’
Lawyer Mark Lindquist
Extensive evidence of a potential problem with the plane had been accumulating for days and possibly weeks,according to interviews with the airline and records of the investigation into the blowout.
In addition to the flashing lights,investigators say the door plug had been gradually sliding upward,a potentially crucial link in the accumulating string of evidence. The airline said its visual inspection in the days leading up to the blowout did not reveal any movement of the door plug.
A door plug is a panel that goes where an emergency exit would be located on a plane with the option of expanding the number of passenger seats.
A preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board last month said thatfour bolts meant to secure the door plug in place were missing before the panel came off the plane. It outlined a series of events that occurred at Boeing’s factory in Renton,Washington,that may have led to the plane being delivered without those bolts being in place.
Mark Lindquist,a lawyer representing passengers on the January 5 flight,said the series of mishaps involving the Alaska Airlines jet were alarming,adding that both the carrier and Boeing,the 737 Max 9’s manufacturer,would struggle to explain the events in court.
“When jurors find out they’d actually been cautioned by engineers to ground the plane,and they put it into commercial rotation instead,jurors will be more than mystified — they’ll be angry,” Lindquist said.
In his court filing,Lindquist said that passengers on a previous flight heard a “whistling sound” coming from the area of the door plug. The documents say passengers brought the noise to the attention of the flight attendant,who then reported it to the pilots. When asked about the report,Alaska Airlines said it could not find any record of a report of whistling coming from the plane.
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Almost a week before the blowout,the 737 had been taken out of service on December 31 because of an issue with the front passenger entry and exit door. Records show the plane resumed service two days later. However,on January 3,a pressurisation warning light was triggered during at least one of the plane’s flights. Alaska Airlines officials said the plane was inspected by engineers and the carrier determined it was safe enough for the plane to continue flying.
The next day,the same light was again triggered.
A spokesperson for Alaska Airlines said it was then that engineers and technicians scheduled the deeper inspection of the plane for the night of January 5 in Portland. But the airline chose to keep the plane flying with passengers as it made its way across the country that day.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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