Keep your seatbelt low and tight in flight, especially when seated next to a plugged door

Yikes...


https://mentourpilot.com/incident-alaska-air-737-max-9-loses-plugged-door-in-flight/

Thankfully, it appears that the seat that was closest to this plugged door of the Alaska MAX-9 was empty.

Sure, it's empty now.

A kid next to the door got his shirt ripped off

Awesome, I think I fly one of those next month.

A new -9, about 145 flights since it entered service about 9 weeks ago. Good news for Airbus.

DaveE said:

Good news for Airbus.

If it's Boeing, I ain't going.

"Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, based in Wichita, Kansas, United States,[2] is an American aerostructure manufacturer, and is the world's largest first-tier aerostructures manufacturer. The company builds several important pieces of Boeing aircraft, including the fuselage of the 737, and 787, as well as the flight deck of the fuselage (referred to as "Section 41" by Boeing) of nearly all of Boeing airliners. Spirit also produces fuselage sections and front wing spars for the Airbus A350."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_AeroSystems

DaveE said:

Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, based in Wichita, Kansas, United States,[2] is an American aerostructure manufacturer

I went through that place when it was Boeing. One of my uncles was a chemist there.

It's a "door plug" not a "plug door". They are not doors.

The 737MAX has space for two pairs of aft doors. In a very high density configuration there needs to be more doors. On non-ULCC carriers, this is not required. In this case, there is no "deactivated" door. It won't open, period (well, that's the plan).

My friend at Boeing sent me some information. The plug is held by four bolts, one in each corner. Somehow multiple bolts failed.

Vanadium 50 said:

My friend at Boeing sent me some information. The plug is held by four bolts, one in each corner. Somehow multiple bolts failed.

I'm not an engineer, but maybe it needs 4 or more, shoot, just put a dozen in.

Greg Bernhardt said:

I'm not an engineer, but maybe it needs 4 or more, shoot, just put a dozen in.

Or give all the passengers an extra shirt.

Greg Bernhardt said:

hoot, just put a dozen in.

Adds weight. Why make it a plug at all? Why not leave it a door? Adds weight and costs two seats.

I suspect counterfeit bolts. There was a case not long ago about a guy in London whose company was selling random parts and forging their certification.

IMHO, the person in question (a former DJ in Venezuela, so not at all sketchy) should be duct-taped to one of these doors, and wished a hearty "good luck!". If the parts aren't fake, he doesn't have anything to worry about, does he?

Vanadium 50 said:

forging

I see what you did there.

Greg Bernhardt said:

I'm not an engineer, but maybe it needs 4 or more, shoot, just put a dozen in.

Bolts don't work if bolts aren't installed properly. It's not too hard for an engineer to design a sound structure on paper. Getting it built correctly is another story. Of course we don't know yet, but if there's a lottery, I've got dibs on a QA failure in the last installation of that door. It wouldn't be the first time there were issues with Boeing assembly quality.

I have not visited the Boeing factory, but I have visited the airbus factory, and the amount of QC is really impressive. They spend as much time on QC as they do on the actual assembly. While it is possible that all four bolts were put in incorrectly and that the QC team didn't notice. my money is on a part failing. And since everything needs to be certified, that leads me to start thinking about counterfeit parts.

Many, many years ago I worked in Quality Control at a Boeing plant. One day I failed 3 circuit boards for the cabin environmental controls, due to poor workmanship / bad solder joints.

Two days later I was confronted by two irate mid-level folks from Production. They chewed me out for failing the defective boards and stated they " ... didn't want the [assembly] line shut down...".

I wrote a report to my supervisor, but he was not in that day. I happened to see the facility Senior Manager in a hallway, so I handed him the report.

A week later I was 'layed off'.

An 'Enlightening Experience'; pay attention to who you work for!

Well if this doesn't give you confidence in flying...

Plane was restricted from flying over water amid auto pressurization fail lights
Alaska Airlines had restricted the plane from flying from over the ocean to Hawaii to ensure the plane could “return very quickly to an airport” in case any warning lights in the aircraft went off, according to Homendy.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/us/alaska-airlines-plug-door-found-investigation-monday/index.html

It looks like all the folks in Portland are treasure hunting now. In addition to the door plug, they have found a couple of phones that got sucked out during the depressurization...


https://abcnews.go.com/US/passenger...-alaska-airlines-emergency/story?id=106186623

So now I'm a little more confused (what's new?)...

The reports and the pictures of the opening seem to show little structural damage, other than the missing door plug:



https://www.phonearena.com/news/iPh...flight-that-lost-a-door-plug-mid-air_id154105

But the Wikipedia article seems to suggest that the door plug should have been mostly inside the fuselage, sealed by the higher pressure inside the cabin compared to outside at 10k+ feet:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_door

So if the Wikipedia sketch is accurate, shouldn't there be a lot of torn up fuselage left behind as the Plug Door was ripped off of the airframe? Or is the Wikipedia drawing incorrect for the Boeing aircraft, and there were literally only 4 bolts holding that Door Plug against the difference in air pressure?

Looks to me like it needed about 4 bolts top and bottom, 8 on a side: 20 total! Wouldn't add much more weight.

Overengineer it. So, if fake, counterfeit parts of poor quality, if poor workmanship, and if dangerous company QC practices are in place, as all 3 causes are in most engineering disasters, you need to increase the design safety factors accordingly. Radically. Double them?

See how many customers want window seats now.

As mentioned above, it is not a plug door. We need a different drawing.

gmax137 said:

As mentioned above, it is not a plug door. We need a different drawing.

Better link please?

berkeman said:

Better link please?

This is all explained in the video in post #9. The bolts don't hold the door horizontally, they keep the door from moving vertically to "unlatch" from the structures that resist the horizontal Δp force.

Oh crap...


https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/us/alaska-airlines-plug-door-found-investigation-monday/index.html

DaveE said:

This is all explained in the video in post #9. The bolts don't hold the door horizontally, they keep the door from moving vertically to "unlatch" from the structures that resist the horizontal Δp force.

I just watched that video. It is 18 minutes long, but is very clear with some good photos and explanation of how the plug works.

berkeman said:

Oh crap...

That's a good read, too!

russ_watters said:

Awesome, I think I fly one of those next month.

Just take your Leatherman tool through the security checkpoint and use it on the plane to check the tightness of the bolts. I heard somewhere that TSA will be allowing Leatherman tools on flights going forward, as long as you can show that you are an ME and have a boarding pass for a "plugged door aisle".

Can they just check all the aircraft bolts for tightness please

Greg Bernhardt said:

Can they just check all the aircraft bolts for tightness please

They have grounded these planes already. This is causing major disruptions.

However, depending on the problem, maybe they will find it, and maybe they won't. If the bolts are bad, but correctly installed, that's a harder problem to catch than if they were installed correctly.

Greg Bernhardt said:

Can they just check all the aircraft bolts for tightness please

'Scuse me mam, just checking your bolts here today. Okay, you're good. Have a nice flight.

Is not plug door. Is door plug.

As far as being restricted from flying over water, would you feel better if it weren't so restricted?

I flew on a 777s first flight with passengers. ORD-CDG. There were still bits of plastic covering various things, like the TV controls. Not sure how I felt about being over an ocean on a brand new plane.

Vanadium 50 said:

I flew on a 777s first flight with passengers. ORD-CDG. There were still bits of plastic covering various things, like the TV controls. Not sure how I felt about being over an ocean on a brand new plane.

Did you pay extra for that?

Vanadium 50 said:

As far as being restricted from flying over water, would you feel better if it weren't so restricted?

I'd feel better if they'd take it out of service and get it air worthy. If they are so nervous about getting to an airport in time, it aint air worthy.