OREGON – The “key missing component” from the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet involved in an Alaska Airlines emergency landing has been recovered from the backyard of a suburban home, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said late on Jan 7.

The door-shaped panel, known as a door plug, tore off the left side of the jet on Jan 5 following take-off from Portland, Oregon, en route to Ontario, California, depressurising the plane and forcing pilots to turn back and land safely with all 171 passengers and six crew on board.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Jan 6 ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing Max 9 jets installed with the same panel, which weighs 27kg and covers an optional exit door mainly used by low-cost airlines.

The missing door plug was recovered on Jan 7 by a Portland school teacher, identified only as “Bob”, who found it in his backyard in the Cedar Hills neighbourhood, said NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy.

She added that she was “very relieved” it had been found.

Ms Homendy had earlier told reporters the aircraft part was a key missing component to determine why the accident occurred.

“Our structures team will want to look at everything on the door, all of the components on the door, to look at witness marks, to look at any paint transfer, what shape the door was in when found. That can tell them a lot about what occurred,” she said.

The force from the loss of the door plug was strong enough to blow open the cockpit door during flight, said Ms Homendy, who noted that it must have been a “terrifying event” to experience.

“They heard a bang,” she said of the pilots, who were interviewed by investigators.

A quick reference laminated checklist flew out the door, while the first officer lost her headset, Ms Homendy said. “Communication was a serious issue... It was described as chaos.”

Ms Homendy said the cockpit voice recorder did not capture any data because it had been overwritten, and again called on regulators to mandate retrofitting existing planes with recorders that capture 25 hours of data, up from the two hours required at present.

Earlier pressurisation issues

Ms Homendy said the auto pressurisation fail light illuminated on the same Alaska Airlines aircraft on Dec 7, Jan 3 and Jan 4, but it was unclear if there was any connection between those incidents and the latest accident.

Alaska Airlines made a decision after the warnings to restrict the aircraft from making long flights over water to Hawaii so that it could return quickly to an airport if needed, she added.

The Seattle-based carrier said earlier in a response to questions about the warning lights that aircraft pressurisation system write-ups were typical in commercial aviation operations with large planes.

The airline said that “in every case, the write-up was fully evaluated and resolved per approved maintenance procedures and in full compliance with all applicable FAA regulations”.

Alaska Airlines added that it has an internal policy to restrict aircraft with multiple maintenance write-ups on some systems from long flights over water that was not required by the FAA.

The FAA said on Jan 7 that the affected fleet of Boeing Max 9 planes, including those operated by other carriers such as United Airlines, would remain grounded until the regulator is satisfied they are safe.

The FAA initially said on Jan 6 that the required inspections would take four to eight hours, leading many in the industry to assume the planes could very quickly return to service.

But criteria for the checks have yet to be agreed between the FAA and Boeing, meaning airlines have yet to receive detailed instructions, people familiar with the matter said.

The FAA must approve Boeing’s inspection criteria before the checks can be completed and planes can resume flights.

Alaska Airlines said late on Jan 7 that it had still not received instructions from Boeing.

The carrier cancelled 170 flights on Jan 7 and a further 60 on Jan 8, and said travel disruptions from the grounding were expected to last through at least midweek.

United, which has grounded its 79 Max 9s, cancelled 230 flights on Jan 7, or 8 per cent of scheduled departures.

The accident has put Boeing back under scrutiny as it awaits certification of its smaller Max 7 as well as the larger Max 10, which is needed to compete with a key Airbus model.

In 2019, the global authorities subjected all Max planes to a wider grounding that lasted 20 months after crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia linked to poorly designed cockpit software killed a total of 346 people. REUTERS