DOJ launches criminal inquiry into rupture of Alaska Airlines 737 aircraft – Report

The U.S The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is looking into the Boeing jetliner incident that caused damage to an Alaska Airlines plane in January.

According to the newspaper and people who know about the situation, investigators have talked to some of the passengers and workers on the Jan flight, including pilots and flight attendants.

The Alaska Airlines plane had a tire blowout and had to land soon after taking off from Portland, Oregon. Boeing has been watched more closely since the incident, when a panel that covered a space for an extra emergency door came off a Max 9 jet. No one got badly hurt.

 Alaska Airlines said that it’s normal for the DOJ to be doing an investigation in a situation like this. “We are working together and don’t think we are being investigated. ”

Boeing said no comment. The DOJ did not answer a question right away.

The newspaper said that a study would help the Department check if Boeing followed the rules in a previous agreement that resolved a government inquiry into the safety of its 737 Max planes after two serious accidents in 2018 and 2019.

In 2021, Boeing agreed to pay $2. 5 billion, including a $244 million fine, to resolve an investigation into the crashes of flights operated by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines. The company said two workers lied to regulators about problems with the plane’s flight-control system.

Boeing wrote to Congress and admitted that it cannot locate the records for the work done on the door panel of the Alaska Airlines plane.

Ziad Ojakli, who is an executive at Boeing, wrote to a senator that they searched a lot but couldn’t find any paperwork. Maria Cantwell will be available on Friday.

The company thinks that the records about the panel being taken off and put back on the plane were never made, even though they were supposed to be.

The Seattle Times reported that there was a letter following a Senate committee hearing where Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board argued about whether Boeing had worked with investigators.

Jennifer Homendy, the head of the safety board, said that Boeing didn’t want to tell us who fixes the doors on their planes and didn’t give us the paperwork for a repair job where the door panel was taken off and put back on.

“It’s ridiculous that we still don’t have that after two months,” Homendy said. “Without that information, it raises worries about how Boeing ensures good quality, manages safety, and runs its systems. ”

Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, asked Boeing to reply within 48 hours.

Right after the Senate meeting, Boeing said it had told the NTSB the names of all 737 door employees and had already given some names to investigators before.

Boeing said in the letter that they had told the safety board before that they couldn’t find the paperwork. Before the hearing, it was stated that Boeing didn’t know about any complaints or worries about not working together.

Last month, the NTSB said in a report that four bolts were missing from the door after it was taken off for repairs. The people who fixed the rivets for Boeing’s supplier Spirit AeroSystems were contractors. However, the NTSB doesn’t know who took off and put back the door panel.

The government told Boeing to fix its problems within 90 days. The committee discovered that Boeing still has safety issues even though they tried to fix them after two of their jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.