The US board will hold hearings on the Boeing 737 MAX door incident

WASHINGTON:

The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday it had scheduled 20 hours of hearings over two days on Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX 9 in January and will review oversight by U.S. safety regulators.

The NTSB said on its website that the Aug. 6-7 hearings will last 10 hours each day and will focus on the construction and inspections of the Boeing 737 MAX, FAA oversight of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, and events related to the removing the door plug in 2023. The hearing will also examine safety and quality management systems.

Boeing faced mounting questions after a door panel detached during a Jan. 5 flight on a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing while passengers were exposed to an open hole 16,000 feet above the ground. . The FAA grounded all MAX 9 planes for several weeks and required safety checks before they could resume flying. The agency also barred Boeing from expanding MAX production as the agency looks into the planemaker’s practices.

The NTSB previously said four key bolts were missing from the door plug that exploded from the Alaska Airlines flight at 16,000 feet. The Ministry of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the incident.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told Reuters in April that she expected witnesses from Alaska, Boeing and Spirit to testify.

The FAA and Boeing referred questions about the hearing to the NTSB. Last month, the NTSB said Boeing could lose its status as a party to the investigation after it broke rules by providing nonpublic information to the media and speculating about possible causes.

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The NTSB said Boeing will no longer see information produced during its investigation, and unlike other parties, Boeing will not be allowed to ask questions of other participants in the August hearing.

Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, who made remarks last month that she violated the rules is expected to appear at the hearing, the NTSB said last month.

The NTSB said last month it would subpoena Boeing witnesses to appear at the hearing. The NTSB said Wednesday that the full investigation will take about a year to 18 months after the accident to complete.