A “miraculous” landing raises systemic airline safety questions

CLIP You’re listening to a frequency podcast network production in association with CityNews.

CLIP: Emergency or return.

Yes, we’re emergency, we’re depressurized. We do need to return back to we have 77 passengers.

Jordan: That’s it. That’s the nightmare. For anyone who flies a plane more than 10,000 feet in the air, a blown out cabin, oxygen masks descending, a vacuum, sucking everything not secured out of the plane, an emergency landing, a touch and go life or death situation. Now, naturally when you hear this story and you breathe a sigh of relief to learn that everyone is safe, the next thing that you want to hear is that it was a freak accident, a one in a million chance. What you don’t want to hear is this

CLIP: Breaking news, United Airlines revealing that inspectors have found loose bolts on more plane door plugs. Really sobering, right? Just to hear that it comes just days after the terrifying incident that you’re looking at here on that Alaska Airlines flight.

Jordan: Right now, Boeing’s 7 37 max nines remain grounded probably indefinitely. We are learning more about where those loose bolts may have come from. We are learning more about potential systemic safety issues in the airline industry, and all of that leaves massive questions to be answered. Are these the only planes with these kind of issues? How could something like this even happen and what do you need to know about airline manufacturing and safety or just about these planes or any others before the next time you fly? I’m Jordan Heath Rowlings. This is The Big Story. Katya Schwenk is a reporter with the Lever based in Phoenix, Arizona. She has been leading the levers coverage of the Alaska Airlines incident and airline safety in general. Hi Katya.

Katya Schwenk: Hello. It’s great to be here.

Jordan: Why don’t you start just by telling us about this now infamous flight. What do we know actually happened as of now, a handful of days later?

Katya Schwenk: Sure. So the story of the Alaska Airlines flight is pretty harrowing. One, the flight takes off from Portland, Oregon on Friday night and shortly thereafter, and passengers here, this massive bang, they see oxygen masks drop in front of them and they realize that there has been an entire panel basically of the plane’s body has blown out Mid-flight. There’s a gaping hole in the side of the plane. Thankfully, and seemingly miraculously, no one was actually sitting directly adjacent to this door plug. The parts of the seats reportedly right next to it are missing, and then thankfully the plane is able to safely return pretty quickly to Portland where it had taken off ramp.

Jordan: How is it even possible? Nobody is seriously injured when that happens.

Katya Schwenk: Seems like something of a miracle and then the door plug is recovered shortly thereafter in someone’s backyard. So I mean, it seems like there are multiple places here where there could have been some kind of more serious injury and yeah, I mean it’s amazing that no one was hurt more seriously

Jordan: And instead you get viral stories of an iPhone that turned on again after falling 16,000 feet. Right,

Katya Schwenk: Exactly. What

Jordan: Has Alaska Airlines, but I guess more importantly, Boeing done with these planes and why? Tell us a little bit about what’s sort of plane it was and what’s happening now.

Katya Schwenk: Sure, so this plane, the plane that was involved in this was what’s called a Boeing 7 37 max nine, and in the wake of this, these planes, this particular variety of plane that had this door panel that blew out has now been grounded. Technically. This was actually the decision of the Federal Aviation Administration by US regulators and not Boeing, but I think the company has said that it’s going to comply with investigations that they’re now ongoing. But yeah, what’s key here is that these planes are now grounded. They can’t be flown including via Alaska Airlines or any other airline that had this particular variety of the 7 37 max nine plane.

Jordan: When we talk about this plane, how many of them are there and what do we know about where they were flying? I guess I’m trying to get a sense of the impact of this grounding and who might be affected or who would’ve been potentially flying these planes.

Katya Schwenk: So there are almost 200 planes, I believe around 170 that have now been grounded that are not allowed to fly. Largely the airlines affected by this are United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, and for both of those airlines in the US, these plates make up a large percent of their fleet. So many airlines might not be affected, but for travelers with those airlines, we’re seeing hundreds of flights being canceled. So yeah, I mean there are hundreds of travelers that are being impacted by the grounding of these planes. And

Jordan: I should mention here for our Canadian audience that it was reported that none of these planes were being flown by Canadian Airlines, but of course you mentioned United and other carriers like that, like everybody who’s ever traveled to the United States or beyond gets on a Canadian plane and has a connecting flight to somewhere else that could be flown by any of these companies.

Katya Schwenk: Exactly, yeah. Their impacts we can safely say are pretty wide.

Jordan: What are we learning now in the following days about the problem on that aircraft? What exactly is

Katya Schwenk: It? This is the question, and I think it is early. We don’t fully understand what caused such a serious issue with the plane. There is an investigation currently by US investigators that’s looking at what caused the door panel to fly off. We’re starting to get indications at least that this may have been a more systemic issue that was not unique to this particular plane. United and Alaska have said on other of these 7 37 max nine planes, they have found loose bolts related to the door panel. It’s unclear what exactly that means, but it is one indication that this is perhaps a bigger issue

Jordan: Where in the manufacturing of a plane like this, might that issue come up, might that issue be caught? You guys have looked into, I gather court documents related to the manufacturing of planes like these.

Katya Schwenk: So it’s unclear to exactly hear bear’s responsibility for what happened, and that’s something that federal regulators are looking into. But in terms of our reporting, we looked specifically at Spirit era Systems. This company that is making the bodies of these planes for Boeing and that we found has some serious issues or at least workers there say that there are some serious issues with the quality control of this company.

Jordan: What kinds of issues?

Katya Schwenk: So these allegations were raised recently in a federal lawsuit by spirit’s investors. According to these documents, former employees of Spirit, a assistance say that they were told to falsely record the number of defects throughout the manufacturing process, which some employees say were excessive employees say that when they raised concerns about how they were told to log these defects, they were retaliated against, and employees say that one issue that they found was how what is called a torque wrench, mechanic’s, torque wrenches were calibrated, which could potentially have an impact on how bolts are installed and if they’re installed correctly. These allegations were raised before the Alaska Airlines incident. It’s unclear how exactly they might relate to it, but certainly important context, understanding this particular supplier for Boeing and what might be going on there.

Jordan: What do Boeing and Spirit say about those court allegations? Have they responded to them in any way had they responded? I guess previous to the Alaska Airlines incident,

Katya Schwenk: So these allegations were raised in court pretty recently. They were filed in December, so Spirit has not responded yet in court. When we reached out to Spirit, they initially didn’t respond to us. They have now, as of yesterday morning, reached out to me and said that they strongly disagree with the allegations. They have not provided any more detail than that about what they disagree with, what the substance of their disagreement is. It’s worth noting that these documents also contain emails, sent copies of ethics complaints. So there is some real substantiation for these claims, but that is what Spirit’s response has been so far. When we reached out to Boeing, they said that they’re not going to comment on the lawsuit against Spirit, that they’re going to let Spirit comment on that.

Jordan: So yeah, just to reiterate, I mean none of these allegations have been proven in court obviously, and none of them are specifically over this flight because they’d all been filed before. Where do things stand right now with that and is it still before the courts? What’s going on there?

Katya Schwenk: Sure, so Spirit is going to be filing. They will file response probably in the coming months. There is going to be a process of discovery, so there’s a long road ahead for this particular court case, which it’s worth noting, was brought by spirit’s own investors who say that the company had misrepresented these clear quality control problems. So long road ahead in this court case a lot yet to still be proven, but it’s going to be a serious issue for a spirit to confront.

Jordan: Given that this is something that you would hope was a freak accident. Then you look into it and it turns out that there are other issues with other planes like this. What kind of oversight applies to the manufacturing of plane fleets? What role does the FAA and government play here, and do we know if something was missed on that front?

Katya Schwenk: Yeah, it’s an important question. The FAA is supposed to provide oversight throughout this process, but when we spoke to aviation industry experts, they told us that because of the FAA and government oversight generally being systematically underfunded, the FAA has struggled to provide adequate oversight of companies like Boeing and particularly companies that Boeing is outsourcing its work to including suppliers like Spirit. I think in the wake of this, that is a really important question to be asked. What role should the FAA have been playing here? Was something missed by government oversight and government regulators before the Al Alaska Airlines crisis?

Jordan: Is that outsourcing that you mentioned a relatively new phenomenon in the industry, have we changed over the last little while the way planes are manufactured compared to previously?

Katya Schwenk: Yes, it is not within the past five years, couple years, but certainly within the last 2030 years. Companies like Boeing have increasingly outsourced different parts of their manufacturing as well as their maintenance, including two companies operating outside the us, which has some experts say, created additional oversight challenges. For bodies like the FAAI

Jordan: Do get that companies should be allowed to choose who manufactures what parts of their equipment, but for something as complex and potentially deadly as an airplane, it seems like we would want a closer look at cost saving measures.

Katya Schwenk: You would think? Yeah, and I think that is going to be a question that Boeing has to answer to. It’s also in the case of spirit, this isn’t the first time this company has come under scrutiny. I mean, there have been reports of defects with spirit products for years now, and that’s part of why the investors brought this lawsuit. While these defects in the past, the FAA has said, we’re not caused for concern about safety, I think there’s an argument to be made that we should have been looking into spirit long before this happened.

Jordan: As we look at these planes in particular, how long might they be grounded? What happens to them? What does Boeing do next?

Katya Schwenk: It’s not clear yet how long they’re going to be grounded. The FBA has said that they cannot fly until they are thoroughly inspected. Good as you would hope, these inspections that are not expected to take particularly long a matter of hours, but the FAA is working with Boeing still to come up with guidelines for how these inspections should be done. So until those inspections are completed and until we know exactly what inspectors are going to be looking for, planes won’t return to the air, and it’s not clear how long that’s going to

Jordan: Take on behalf of people, mostly Canadians who will be flying over the next several months. Presumably, when these planes are cleared to return to the air, what do those people need to know if they are nervous about flying on a craft like this other 7 37 max nines?

Katya Schwenk: Well, as we’ve said, people can be assured that they will not be flying on this particular version of the Max nine that has this door panel, and I don’t think that there is reason to panic about any other kind of the Boeing Max nines, which have been flying safely as far as we’ve seen so far. But if passengers are interested in knowing what kind of plane that they’re going to be flying on for any upcoming flight, there are various databases online that allow you to sort of plug in your flight details and we’ll tell you specifically what kind of plane you’re going to be flying on.

Jordan: The last question I have is about the bigger picture. We touched on it a little bit. Boeing is obviously a huge name in aerospace, probably the one that most people would mention if you ask them to give you one. This is, to my knowledge at least the second time, a particular model of their aircraft has been grounded because of safety issues. What are we learning in general as you go and report this about safety and air transport right now, and what are you learning about the state of the industry, I guess?

Katya Schwenk: Yeah, it’s an important question. I think it’s the question of this story. I think what we’ve found is these problems have flad Boeing. Now, as you’ve said, for this is not the first time that a Boeing plane has been grounded, and I think people in the industry are calling for real change to see real change from the company. People are worried that we have not been successfully able to fold Boeing to account on these safety issues. I think we also know that there is going to be a thorough investigation of this, and I think hopefully that investigation is going to point toward solutions for Boeing and for the entire industry.

Jordan: Katya, thanks so much for this. Thanks for your reporting and for explaining it to us.

Katya Schwenk: Thanks so much for having me.

Jordan: Katya Schwenk of the Lever, that was The Big Story. For more head to The Big Story podcast.ca, you can look up whatever topic you’re interested in the search bar and lemme tell you by now, we’ve probably covered it. You can also suggest a topic If you somehow find one that we haven’t, you can do that just by emailing us. The address is hello at The Big Story podcast.ca or by calling us and leaving a voicemail. If you do call us and you don’t mind if we might play your voicemail in this space on the show, please tell us that because we won’t play a voicemail from a listener unless they say, Hey, feel free to play this on the show. In which case, hey, it’s fair game. We do listen to every one and take ’em to heart. If you want to take us to heart, you can go to wherever you’re listening to this podcast and either rate it or review it or share it with a friend. Help us get the word out and we’ll be massively appreciative. The Big Story is available in every single podcast player as you know, and on a smart speaker if you ask it to play The Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.